Mass Effect - Eden Prime
by Crazy 3ddie
Summary: Videogame novelization originally written for Bioware. Presenting here for Mass Effect's 10th anniversary.
1. Introduction

**The Citadel - October 8th, 20182**

"Well... what about Shepard?"

Admiral Steven Hackett stopped pacing at the word as a flood of documents flittered across his field of vision, momentarily blinding him to the real world. The first window to open was a list of high ranking officers by the name "Shepard", but there weren't many people Udina could be referring to.

"She grew up in the colonies," Udina went on, reading through the records displayed on his terminal. They were the sanitized, civilian-approved version of the same records Admiral Hacket and Captain Anderson were seeing now in their heads, "Twenty seven years old, N7 rating..."

"She knows how tough it can be out there," Anderson said, "Her parents were killed when slavers attacked Mindoir."

Shepard - Lieutenant Commander Shepard - was the newly appointed executive officer of SSV Normandy. Her service record flickered across Hacket's vision for a few moments, but the Admiral knew Shepard's story already. "She saw her whole unit die on Akuze. She could have some serious emotional scars."

Anderson shook his head, "Every soldier has scars. Shepard's a survivor."

Ambassador Udina scrolled through the rest of the service record, scanning the man's accomplishments and achievements. Aside from her N7 rating, the woman specialized as a combat engineer; in field deployments in her early career, she showed a remarkable aptitude for electronic warfare, particularly in disabling enemy sensors and shields. Thanks to the neural implants that came with her N7 training she'd also shown a remarkable talent for what the defense contractors were calling "distributed combat," and "individual force multipliers," either of which were just buzzwords for combat drones and AI warfare. Put another way: Shepard could attack an enemy from many directions at once, projecting her awareness into combat drones, infiltrating enemy tactical systems, or even directing fire support from orbit as easily as a normal person might scratch an itch. There was something a little creepy about this new generation of warfare the N7s were unleashing on the universe, and it was made all the worse by the fact that these new tactics were only new for humans.

There was a battlefield record of a clash with a platoon of Salarian mercenaries in the Attican Traverse - the Eclipse, as they called themselves - in the weeks following the Skyllian Blitz, in which Shepard successfully hacked the IFF protocols of a half dozen combat mechs and sent them into a fratricidal rampage against her opponents. Later, on Akuze, she'd survived an attack by ravenous thresher maws by remote-operating a pair of Klondike APCs and using them as decoys. Everything about her service record told a story of resourcefulness and studied calm under pressure. And yet...

"Is that the kind of person we want protecting the galaxy?" Udina asked, shutting off his display. The service record could only tell him so much; it was the opinion of the Navy's leadership he really cared about.

Admiral Hacket looked indecisive, and shot a glance at Anderson as if to say 'Ball's in your court.'

Captain Anderson picked it up in an instant. "That's the only kind of person who can protect the galaxy."

Udina, for his part, had his doubts. But the list of prospective candidates for the new program was already stunningly short, and the fact that Shepard was on it at all spoke volumes. "I'll make the call."

 _In the year 2148, explorers on Mars discovered the remains of an ancient spacefaring civilization. In the decades that followed, these mysterious artifacts revealed amazing new technologies mankind had never imagined before. Force, mass and energy could now be exchanged one for the other at the touch of a button. New materials, once thought impossible, could be developed with ease. New medicines were developed that could extend life or mend even the most life threatening injuries. New computers, new weapons, no tools for scientific exploration. New ways were found to enhance human beings with abilities far beyond what nature could provide. And at long last, humanity gained the ability to travel faster than light, extending its reach even to furthest stars._

 _The basis for this incredible new technology was a force that controlled the very fabric of space and time. Engineers called it the Newtonian Conversion Field. Archeologists called it the Great Prothean Invention. Journalists and politicians called it the greatest discovery in human history._

 _The civilizations of the Galaxy Call it_

 ** _The Mass Effect_**


	2. Chapter 1

**1 - SSV Normandy: January 8th, 2183**

Arcturus had been one of the better known stars in the sky even in antiquity, so it was still a tremendous surprise for human beings to have found not just habitable planets, but inhabited planets there. The creatures that had been found scraping nutrients out of the frozen oceans of Arcturus' many ice dwarfs weren't sophisticated enough to have technology or language, but they'd shown those first human explorers what to expect, that they were on the right track, that they were moving into a galaxy teeming with life, and that each new sun and each new world held wonders they could only begin to imagine.

But Arcturus wasn't most notable for its life or its natural resources, abundant as they both were. On the contrary, the system was much better known for the ring of giant space stations that had been discovered in the system's kuiper belt by the first expedition to the system. Each of these installations "pointed" in a different direction, and each pulsed with more power per second than all the spacefaring races of the galaxy had generated in ten thousand years.

One of those installations was directly in their path now, still far enough away that it was just one bright star among many, but even from this distance its power core was bright enough that it out-shone all of the stars around it.

"Arcturus Prime Relay is in range... initiating transmission sequence." Flight Lieutenant Jeff 'Joker' Moreau was counting down on the ship's intercom as he made his maneuvers. This would be only the third time in its existence the Normandy would have to endure a mass relay transit, and the first time it had done so beyond the Sol/Arcturus test flight.

Lieutenant Commander Shepard turned away from the monitor in her office, rubbed her eyes, blinking away afterimages. She knew, intellectually, that the light from the relay wasn't actually coming from the relay at all; the mass effect field around the device was refracting radiation from all over the universe, amplifying it and bouncing it back, blue-shifted beyond recognition. It was said that if you looked directly into the relay at just the right angle, you would be able to see the flash of the big bang and the birth of the universe; it was also said that if you looked directly into a mass relay for long enough, you would go mad.

In Joker's case, madness was relative.

"We are connected. Calculating transit mass and destination."

Normandy's engines were still active - the ship was decelerating to hit the relay at a safe approach speed - but the mass effect engines acted on the entire ship at once, so even when the ship was accelerating, the crew was still weightless as if gravity was only a memory. But Shepard knew her way around a starship well enough; she left the field commander's office and slipped through the crew bunks - mostly empty at the moment - and glided through the narrow passageway leading to the forward pressure hull. The two marines guarding the CIC (Command Information Center) clicked their mag boots and saluted her as she floated by, as did Staff Lieutenant Presley at his station next to the central console. That small triangular console in the center of the room, little bigger than a dining room table, projected holographic displays in the air above it, showing the Normandy's position in space relative to the Arcturus system. Captain Anderson stood at a dais overlooking this display, watching the ship's movements with a God's eye view of the universe around him. Unlike anyone else on the ship, he could count on the gravitic sensors, the local comm buoys and even the ship's own inertial navigation system to tell exactly where they were at any given moment.

"Relay is hot," Joker announced, "Acquiring approach vector."

Shepard glanced at the navigational display but didn't slow down. She glided right through the cramped CIC to the the narrow passageway leading up to the bridge. This room, the domain of the ship's pilot and main control stations, was barely larger than a shuttle's cockpit and would have been unbearably cramped if the Normandy had any gravity to speak of. Alliance vessels were known for being claustrophobic, but spacers like Shepard thrived in that closeness.

The lighting in the room shifted as she planted her mag boots on the deck. Normandy had finally slowed to a safe approach speed and was now turning in space, re-aligning itself with its target. The outline of the mass relay was visible now. Fifteen kilometers long, and built from two large curving arms enclosing a pair of concentric spinning rings at their nexus, the relay still dwarfed any single manmade object in history. The maddening blue glow that had dazzled those early explorers was coming from a power core trapped at the center of those spinning gyroscopic rings that produced incomprehensible amounts of energy through a process that no one in the galaxy had ever been able to duplicate. An installation just like this had once been discovered half buried on the surface of Pluto's moon Charon and the science team had attempted to tap that power source for humanity's benefit; their efforts had cost them their lives (and also cost Pluto its largest moon), but it made possible exactly the kind of maneuver that Lieutenant Moreau was about to attempt.

Responding to Normandy's signal, the rings had already begun to spin faster, the glow from their power core intensifying as the relay charged up. It was moving as well, reorienting itself to point its two long arms in the direction of one of its more distant cousins in the Zion system. Thousands of light years away, the paired relay was doing the exact same thing, and in a few moments the two installations would be perfectly aligned.

How they were able to do this instantaneously without directly signaling each other, no one had ever determined. In fact, after nearly four thousand years of investigating, no one had more than a basic idea how the mass relays even worked.

"All stations secure for transit." Moreau checked his restraints and toggled his helm to manual control. His hands now moved through holographic fields like a magician casting some sort of complicated spell, using a system that was - for him at least - perfectly intuitive if not surprisingly busy. Shepard understood, on some level, that Moreau had customized the interface to fit his own piloting style. He could me fine or gross adjustments to course and speed, he could fly the ship through the eye of a needle at top speed or spin it end for end and through the Grand Canyon, and nobody would ever know how until after he'd done it.

The mass relay in front of them grew impossibly large. The Grand Canyon was child's play by comparison.

"The board is green. Approach run has begun."

Shepard felt more than heard the arrival of the ship's one and only passenger as he stepped into the bridge behind her. She didn't look at him, at least not directly. Instead she clicked on the sensor package in her omni-tool - the elaborate package of computers and electronics embedded into the bones of her forearm - and had the ship's security cameras routed to her personal view. In an instant, she could see herself, Lieutenant Moreau, and Lieutenant Alenko sitting on the bridge from the perspective of a security camera built into the ceiling.

A seven foot tall alien soldier in reinforced combat armor was anchored to the deck half a meter to her right on those awkward double-joined legs of his. The turian officer had a roughly humanoid shape - two arms, two legs and a head with two eyes - with a thick bony carapace like an exoskeleton that gave them a spiky, deeply threatening appearance. This particular turian had said almost nothing since he came aboard the ship at Tranquility Base, and what little he'd spoken in English had been cryptic at best. In the cramped space of the bridge, Shepard could almost feel his body heat on the back of her neck.

Normandy began to turn angling in towards the relay from a point slightly behind its extended arms. Joker swung his hands through his controls and the ship's engines hummed slightly, turning an otherwise straight flight path into a sharp, hyperbolic curve that would come just about perpendicular to the relay. Outside, all four engine pylons - just over half the ship's total mass - physically moved on gimbals to match his adjustments, and soon Normandly was flying slowly alongside the relay and its enormous, spinning core.

The deck and the bulkheads began to shake. The blue glow from the core spilled out and engulfed the ship and something like a lightning storm crackled all around them.

Do or die, Shepard thought. There was always a nonzero chance of any mass relay transit of instant death without warning...

"Hitting the relay," Joker announced, "in... 4... 3... 2... 1..."

The entire universe exploded.

Shepard had the sensation that her internal organs were no longer where they should be, as if half of her body was a million light years away and being dragged along like a like on a string. Outside the ship it looked as if a supernova had just gone off outside the cockpit windows; clouds of gas and dust hundreds of light years wide raced past them and collapsed around them, solar systems darted past like rain drops, the entire cosmic background of the Big Bang crackled in view, blueshifted into the visible spectrum in such patterns that some people really had gone mad for looking at it too long. Shepard stiffened, closed her eyes...

"Thrusters... check," Joker began calmly, "Navigation... check."

Shepard opened her eyes. The stars were back. The mass relay was back... although at the moment it was now just a spec in the distance, barely more than an oddly flickering star among millions.

But it wasn't the same mass relay. Joker had brought the ship in close enough to skim off some of the energy from the Arcturus Prime relay, which had sent the one hundred and thirty meter fast attack ship leaping over four hundred trillion kilometers through space. The fact that they were still alive meant they were in the Zion system now, which meant the easy part of the journey was over. "Rig for silent running," She said, shaking off the jitters. Mass relay travel affected everyone differently; to Joker's right, Lieutenant Alenko was only just regaining consciousness.

"Internal emission sink engaged," Joker answered, "Stealth systems online."

"Engineering to bridge," Chief Adams chimed up on the intercom, joining Joker's announcements through all ship's spaces, "Heat sinks at twenty one percent capacity. All gages green."

"Copy that, engineering," Shepard answered, "Transit complete. Inertial drift?"

Joker grinned. "Just under fifteen hundred K."

In just a few too many voices at once, the Turian officer rumbled, "Fifteen hundred is good. Your captain will be pleased."

Shepard turned her head, but not too quickly. Fast enough to see him pivot and leave, pushing off the deck and gliding aft between the gunnery stations towards the CIC. His comment to Joker had been both the most positive and the most verbose thing he'd said - in English, at least - since he came aboard.

"I hate that guy," said Joker.

Shepard looked at him annoyed, but said nothing.

Lieutenant Alenko didn't look at him at all, but spoke his mind as usual. "Nihlus gave you a complement. So... you hate him."

Joker rolled his eyes. "You remember to zip up your jumpsuit on the way out of the bathroom? That's good. I just jumped us halfway across the galaxy and hit a target the size of a pinhead. So that's incredible! Besides, Specters are trouble. I don't like having him onboard. Call me paranoid."

Shepard nodded at this. Specters were trouble, and they liked it that way. In only thirty six years since humans made bloody first contact with the Turian Hierarchy, it was only their contact with the Specters - the eyes and ears of the Citadel Council - that had really shaken their self image of their place in the universe.

"You're paranoid," Alenko said, "The Coucil helped fund this project. They have a right to send someone to keep an eye on their investment."

"Yeah, that is the official story. But only an idiot believes the official story."

Shepard sighed, "You always expect the worst."

Joker snorted, "Well, bad feelings are an occupational hazard. We don't go anywhere unless there's a good reason, so what are we doing here?"

The one-channel intercom beeped on the pilot console. This was the closed circuit, direct line from the Captain to any one station on the ship so that conversations wouldn't be transmitted to the entire crew. Captain Zander - the previous CO of the Normandy - had used it to try and catch his subordinates napping on the job. Captain Anderson used it to like a megaphone. "Joker! Status report!"

"Just cleared the mass relay, Captain," Moreau answered, "Stealth systems engaged. Everything looks solid."

"Good. Start calculating a program for Eden Prime and begin the runup to FTL as soon as possible."

"Aye, Captain. Better brace yourself, I think Nihlus is headed your way."

The frown in Anderson's voice landed like a wet blanket. "He's already here, Lieutenant. Tell Commander Shepard to meet me in the comm room for a debriefing." The intercom beeped off.

Joker glanced over his shoulder, "You get that Commander?"

Shepard nodded, like a woman who'd just been summoned to the principal's office. Presently, she sent a mental command to open the omni-tool built into the bones of her forearm; a glowing orange holographic display appeared to encase her arm and a small, circular icon appeared, prompting her for commands. A movement of her finger could shift the icon in any one of eight different directions, each with a different option. She could access the tool's many different functions, access any system it was linked to, access its tactical capabilities or weapon systems, or she could - as in a combat situation - link the tool into one of the implants surgically implanted in her brain and control the device through a series of well practiced autonomic commands, like an extension of her own body. For now, she flipped the selector to "System" and then selected "comms" to open up the ship's 1MC channel. "Attention all hands. Transit is now complete. Set Condition White throughout the ship, standard FTL protocol." She closed the 1MC and waited a few moments. The crew was divided into three categories: support crew, combat crew, and flight crew. The latter category would be the last to enter cryo-stasis and the first to emerge from it as the ship neared its destination, while the support crew - those not absolutely essential to the operation of the ship - would be the first in and the last out.

Shepard waited until those few support crewmen who happened to be in the CIC made their way below decks, then turned aft just as Nihlus had moments ago. "Tell the Captain I'm on my way."

With the ship's first officer no longer on the bridge, Joker leaned over to Alenko in the communication's seat and quipped, "Is it me or does the Captain always sound a little pissed off?"

"Only when he's talking to you, Joker," was Alenko's inevitable response.

The Systems Alliance Space Vessel Normandy, carried a complement of twenty four Alliance Marines, two M35 Mako infantry fighting vehicles, sixteen SIM-55 disruptor torpedoes and forty eight SIM-90 Javelin ship-to-ship missiles. The ship also hosted a pair of 105mm cannons in the nose, military-grade kinetic barriers, the upgraded GARDIAN electronic warfare system, and mass effect field drives capable of accelerating the ship at seventy gees. It was the most advanced ship in the Alliance Navy, and certainly one of the deadliest.

And yet the enormous power of the so-called "Stealth Reconnaissance Ship" wasn't found in its weapon systems. Rather, Normandy owed most of its deadly potential to the small circular room at the far aft end of the upper deck, where sixty million credits worth of cryptographic VIs, heuristic expert systems, translation algorithms and data-mining runtimes could monitor and process the total signal traffic of an entire populated solar system. This cramped space the size of a walk-in closet, called Communications and Signals Intelligence Center or just "Comm Room," was intended to be worked in conjunction with the huge triangular communications antenna mounted on the ship's spine. A small team of naval intelligence specialists could decrypt and analyze enemy traffic, search the data for patterns, pick out names and references and even innocuous phrases that might be codes, clues, or even inside jokes. It could monitor troop movements, follow shipments, eavesdrop on command-level communications, even track the comings and goings of individual officers.

None of those specialists were on board for Normandy's shakedown cruise; the special quarters/offices/workspaces along the corridor of the upper deck stood empty as ever. The Comm Room should have been just as empty, considering no one but Commander Shepard and Captain Anderson had the security clearance to even unlock the door. So she was very surprised to find their turian passenger already inside, bobbing in the center of the cramped compartment in the middle of a constellation of display windows. Somehow he seemed both very agitated and very much at home, like a man being imprisoned in his own living room.

Nihlus turned to face her as the doors closed behind her. He seemed to relax, but only slightly. "Commander Shepard. I was hoping you'd get here first. It will give us a chance to talk."

"What about?" She couldn't help but notice that most of the displays were extranet windows, mainly tourist guides and government extranet sites. All of them related to the same subject...

"I'm interested in this world we're going to, Eden Prime," Nihlus said, his eyes falling on Shepard just for a moment as he turned himself, glancing back and forth between different screens, "I've heard it's quite beautiful."

Shepard nodded, "They say it's paradise."

"Yes, paradise," Nihlus reached up and grabbed an overhead hand hold, his attention back on the displays in the air. "Tranquil. Serene. Safe. Eden Prime has become something of a symbol for your people, hasn't it? Proof that humanity can not only establish colonies across the galaxy, but also protect them. But how safe is it, really?"

There had to be a reason for that question, Shepard figured. "Do you know something I don't?"

"Your people are still newcomers, Shepard," Nihlus said, turning to face her at last, "The Galaxy can be a dangerous place. Is the Alliance truly ready for this?"

For a guy asking an obviously loaded question, Nihlus seemed remarkably relaxed. Shepard was beginning to wonder the significance of this when the Comm Room doors opened behind her and Captain Anderson's voice boomed through it. "I think it's about time we told the Commander what's really going on." Captain Anderson moved through a starship the way a battleship moved through a fog bank; he never seemed to touch anything, he just sort of happened to be moving in whatever direction he needed to be, and everything else moved out of his way.

"This mission is far more than a simple shakedown run." Nihlus said it with so little hesitation that Shepard realized he had been leading up to exactly that same line of thought.

Not that it wasn't already obvious by now. "I figured there was something you weren't telling us," Shepard said.

Anderson nodded. "We're making a covert pick-up on Eden Prime. That's why we needed the stealth systems operational."

So it was a mission. That made sense. "What's the payload, Captain?"

"A research team on Eden Prime unearthed some kind of beacon during an excavation. It was Prothean."

That was interesting, but not overly revealing. The Protheans had been extinct for nearly fifty thousand years, and no one was entirely sure why. Whatever eventually killed them left very little of their civilization intact. It had, however, spared most of their technology, including the mass relay network. "What else can you tell me?"

"This is big, Shepard. The last time humanity made a discovery like this, it jumped our technology forward two hundred years. But Eden Prime doesn't have the facilities to handle something like this. We need to bring the beacon back to the Citadel for proper study."

"Obviously this goes behind mere human interests, Commander," Nihlus added, "This discovery could affect every species in council space."

There was a weary edge in one of Nihlus' voices. Shepard wasn't sure if it was just the weird flanging effect of his slightly out-of-synch dual vocal chords or if the turian spectre really expected trouble. "It never hurts to have a few extra hands on board," she said, not sure whose hands would end up being the extra ones today.

"The beacon's not the only reason I'm here, Shepard."

"Nihlus wants to see you in action, Commander," Anderson added, "He's here to evaluate you."

 _Evaluate me?_ "What's going on, Captain?"

"The Alliance has been pushing for this for a long time. Humanity wants a larger role in shaping interstellar policy. We want more say with the Citadel Council. The Specters represent the Council's power and authority. If they accept a human into their ranks, it shows how far the Alliance has come."

"Not many could have survived what you went through on Akuze," Nihlus said, "You showed remarkable adaptability - a particularly useful talent. That's why I put your name forward as a candidate for the Specters."

"Why would a Turian want a human in the Specters?" Shepard asked.

"Not all Turians resent humanity. Some of us see the potential in your species. We see what you have to offer to the rest of the galaxy... and to the Specters. We are an elite group. It's rare to find an individual with the skills we seek. I don't care that you're human, Shepard. I only care that you can do the job."

 _And Anderson of all people is supporting this?_ "I assume this is good for the Alliance," Shepard asked. She only half expected an answer.

"Earth needs this, Shepard," Anderson said, "We're counting on you."

"I need to see your skills for myself, Commander," Nihlus went on, "Eden Prime will be the first of several missions together. You'll be in charge of the ground team. Your task is to secure the beacon and get it back to the ship as soon as possible. I will accompany you, but only as an observer."

It didn't seem quite right. It didn't seem quite wrong either. But with more information to work with, Shepard now had a mission to complete, so at least in that regard she was back in something resembling 'normal.' That was something, at least... "I'll do my best, Captain."

Anderson nodded. "Get settled in for the long nap. We'll conduct a formal briefing at Utopia. That will be all."

Shepard saluted, and then pushed off from the deck and started moving back through the connecting corridor on her way to Normandy's main deck.

"Attention all hands, we are at FTL and accelerating," Lieutenant Moreau announced on the 1MC, "Auto-navigation is enabled. Total transit time, ninety one days and fourteen hours. Midcourse crew checks scheduled at T-plus thirty and sixty days. Sleep tight, kids!"

Shepard did the math in her head, just to see if she still could.

 _Accelerating and standard cruising thrust of about sixty Gs..._

Hatchway B came up on her left and she spun herself at a handrail and threw herself downwards into the crew deck. Her uniform felt stiff somehow, too heavy even on a ship with no gravity, and she unzipped the front of her jumpsuit and folded it back from her shoulders, leaving just an undershirt and a pair of dog tags with a name that wasn't hers. She tied the sleeves of her jumpsuit around her waist as she entered the crew deck, and tugged her mag boots off as she reached the long passage that ran the length of the stasis bay.

 _Normandy will reach a maximum velocity of 7,600 times the speed of light..._

Lieutenant Alenko and the other marines were already there, stowing their boots in the tiny slots on the inner casing of their assigned pods. Chief Postle, the requisitions officer, was just pushing himself into an open pod and tucking his arms and legs into the soft restraints that would keep him from bobbing around inside of it. He started to her with a conservative tone of "Hey Commander, I-" and trailed off when she sailed past him like a shark in a coral reef, wordless and unseeing.

 _Utopia System, 8.8 trillion kilometers, about nine-tenths of a light year..._

Before he could say anything else, Postle's stasis pod hissed shut and the medical cuff closed around his arms, micro-needles injected a carefully-measured sedative calculated to render him unconscious for a little over three hours. He was still conscious when the pod retracted into a slot in the circular wall, less so as the computer flooded the interior of the pod with a concentrated mass effect field. Within that field, Chief Postle's rest mass increased more than a thousandfold, a consequence of which was the dilation of time by an equal measure. The three point one hours he would spend unconscious in his pod would be stretched out over the next three months, at which point the computer would wake him automatically along with the rest of the flight crew to begin the next phase of their mission at Eden Prime.

 _We'll arrive just after morning on April 7th, 2183. She smiled to herself. Still got it._

The stasis bay had thirty pods, one for each member of the crew plus six reserved for the intelligence specialists that should have been aboard for a normal mission. Half of the pods had already retracted into the wall, the marines inside blissfully unaware in their quiet little pocket of frozen spacetime. Shepard found her own pod near the end of the bay, close to the hatch to the CIC where, along with the Captain and flight officer's pods, she could be awakened quickly in an emergency and pressed into service. She stowed her boots, pressed herself into the casing of the pod and pulled the little velcro harness around her chest to secure herself inside, then reached up and hit the switch on the inside cover to tell the pod she was ready. The confused, slightly nervous stares of the other marines bounced off of her like laser beams off a mirror, and they watched in silence as she slammed the lid down on top of herself and locked it from the inside. She felt the needles push through her skin, felt the tingle of the mass effect field beginning to suspend all brownian motion within the pod, felt the sensation of terrible, terrible cold beginning to build up just as the sedatives kicked in and robbed her of consciousness...

Calling this "cryo-stasis" was a misnomer if there ever was one, but the term alluded to the fact the boundary layer of the stasis field caused such a massive drop in external temperature that even the best insulated stasis pods soon formed a layer of frost on their outer casing, as if the person inside had been frozen in a block of ice. The relative cold was just a trick of physics as the universe tried and failed to transfer energy from a place that seemed to have it to a place that didn't. A human in stasis could survive that way for years, even decades, and wake up on the other side as if from a short restful nap.

For people like Commander Shepard, it was just a momentary nuisance, like having to take a shower before jumping into a swimming pool. A little over twelve weeks would seem to pass in just a few short heartbeats for her. And yet, as her stasis pod retracted into the wall and another slid out to take its place, Lieutenant Alenko couldn't help asking, "What's got her in such a bad mood?"

"She gets like that sometimes," Doctor Chakwas said, "Usually right before a combat deployment."

Alenko looked at her anxiously, "You think something happened?"

"No. I think something is about to happen. So before I go down for the nap, I had better check to make sure my sickbay is ready for casualties."

...

...

For most practical purposes interstellar space was an almost perfect vacuum, a medium so devoid of gas that measurements of pressure and density ceased to be meaningful and it made more sense to simply count the number of atoms in a cubic meter of space. And yet, at a high enough relative velocity, this vacuum was far from empty: a starship moving through the interstellar medium at several thousand times the speed of light might as well have been crashing through a thin atmosphere at orbital velocities. The otherwise diffuse gas would be crushed to a thin layer in front of it, increasing in density and flashing to incandescence, building heat and radiation as the ship moved. While the effect was dramatic and flashy, the gas was still thin enough that the drag force was just a tiny consideration, not nearly enough to hinder its progress meaningfully even if the engines were to completely fail.

The flashing incandescence registered as a faint glow against the kinetic barriers as the ship accelerated and left an ionized trail in its path that would have been visible to even the most unsophisticated sensors from light years away. Even with their stealth systems hiding the ship's initial departure from the system, anyone looking to trace the Normandy's trajectory would have no trouble doing so. Strategically speaking, this did not present any real problem; the speed of light being what it was, no one in the Utopia System or any nearby listening post would be able to see the ship's wake until days, months or even years after its mission was completed. But someone leaving the Zion system on a similar vector would indeed be able to see the Normandy's trail as it smashed through the light speed barrier and raced into the distance like a missile. Someone would be able to trace the ship's trajectory and tell exactly where it was going, even if they couldn't positively identify it or even tell who the ship belonged to. That someone, if they thought it was relevant, might have seen fit to intercept the Normandy in deep space and attack it while its flight crew slept blissfully unaware, or perhaps move to a position far ahead of the ship and leave a cloud of small, dense metal objects in its path for it to crash into. Either option would be absolutely devastating and would, in the end, leave the Normandy with very few means to defend itself.

But to the Nazara, there was nothing really threatening about the Normandy other than the fact that it existed. A quick scan of its drive profile revealed a laughably small power plant - less than a fraction of the power that the Nazara produced - and the mass effect fields hid the profile of a very slender, delicately built vessel that was designed more for speed and agility than meaningful warfare. The Nazara noted that the ship appeared to be heading for the Isel'shua System - what the humans in this era now called Utopia - and having left more than a month prior, would arrive there at almost the same time. Other than that, there was nothing about it that was even slightly noteworthy. Even its armaments, if it carried any, were hardly a threat to them.

And so the Nazara left the mass relay behind, continued on their long awaited journey, flanked by their unlikely entourage and their croaking, inquisitive logic schemes. For days, then weeks, they cruised through the interstellar medium, smashing a wall of interstellar gas into a glowing sheet of charged particles. Four weeks after they left the mass relay they passed the tiny human vessel that had arrived before them, and four weeks after that they turned around, aiming their propulsive elements into the void and began the long deceleration phase. They were in no hurry at all - time was the one resource of which they had an infinite supply - but they were growing increasingly aware of the advancing cycle of the ages. The time for the harvest had long since arrived, but there was still much to do before they could begin. Things they shouldn't have had to do, things they never needed to do, things that parts of them hated they still had to do...

The sleeping organics within its body remained dormant for now, but they wouldn't have asked them their question even if they had been awake. As the distant sun of Isel'shua grew from a tiny distant star to a bright point of light in the distance, the question echoed in the quiescent halls of the machine until it was almost a scream in its millions of disembodied minds.

Where is the conduit? They asked with an almost obsessive zeal, one hundred and thirty four times a second, every second, every minute of their existence. They had been asking this question for the better part of a century, and they asked it again into a void that offered them precious few answers. Where is the Sanctuary? Where is the Conduit?

Some day soon, the Nazara would have an answer to this incessant question.

On that day, the galaxy would end in fire.


	3. Chapter 2

**2 - Pilgrimage: Well, at least I got paid**

She wasn't taking advantage of them, not really. Thinking that way was just a self-fulfilling prophecy, she told herself. It was just internalizing other people's prejudices. It was letting the cruel judgements of the rest of the galaxy define who she really was. No, she wasn't taking advantage of their ignorance or their lack of experience with alien cultures. She was simply enjoying the benefits of dealing with a civilization that hadn't yet been indoctrinated with all the hateful stereotypes and ugly rumors that saturated the galaxy like a spreading disease.

And like most Quarians, Tali'Zorah Nar Raya knew a thing or two about diseases.

"It looks fine now," Captain Willem was saying, "No errors or anything. But as soon as I try to plot an actual course?" He had already called up orbital data for the planet Arcadia, the gigantic heavy-metal rock closest to the local star. The navigational computer splashed a prompt on his screen to enter flight characteristics - the rate of acceleration, the amount of time under null gravity, the parameters of their final orbit around the destination planet - in text fields in a corner of the screen. "Now watch," he entered the number "1" for the "accel" text box and then entered into the other boxes an orbit with a semi-major axis of five thousand kilometers, and an eccentricity of zero, and then tapped the icon to set the computer to work.

A spinning disk-shaped graphic appeared with the words "Please wait..." in the center. Willem waited. Tali'Zorah waited.

And they waited some more.

"So it hangs when you try to make an orbital computation?"

"Every. Damn. Time. I had to feed in figures from the cargo shuttle on the last three or four runs."

"It's probably a memory leak somewhere," Tali said. She tapped the right forearm on her suit and opened her omni-tool, and watched the surprise barely manage to stay out of Willem's face that the alien technician he'd brought aboard was using such a familiar device. Lots of humans had this reaction, she'd noticed, but she didn't understand why. The first omni-tools were invented by Quarians, everyone else only started using them later.

Captain Jack Willem was a middle-aged man who put on the affectations of a naval officer despite never having served in any military organization anywhere. He dressed in a formal-looking navy blue uniform that resembled an Alliance dress uniform but had no insignia or rank badges. Most of his crew wore military-style duty uniforms complete with pressure catches for airtight gloves and helmets so they could seal themselves against the vacuum in an emergency. They were a bunch of amateurs playing space adventure, and with a ship as large and as powerful as the MSV Majesty, they weren't doing a terrible job.

Tali'Zorah nar Raya was young, but she was no amateur. And in the full body environment suit she was wearing, she was also far better prepared for the vacuum of space than any of the costume-wearing spacers on Willem's crew. The basic skin-tight sheath was airtight, water tight, ballistic and radiation resistant; the violet silk scarves draped across her chest, hips, legs, and over the top of her helmet were partially decorative, but mostly there to keep her tool belts from chafing the suit and wearing down the seals over time. Tali'Zorah's helmet was composed of a round, tinted faceplate and a circular port near the chin that contained a high-fidelity speaker and a rebreather.

She was, in essence, wearing a very ornate and highly customized space suit everywhere she went. She never took it off in public, not even to open her visor; the faceplate was transparent to her, but no one outside of the Quarian Flotilla - or at least, no one who whose color perception didn't include most of the ultraviolet spectrum - had ever actually seen her face. Even so, Captain Willem could see the bioluminescent glow that marked the shape of her eyes, and from that very faint clue he could see the frustration in her expression. "Can't find the problem?"

"It's not a memory leak," Tali'Zorah said in a tone that said she had simply ruled it out and was moving on. "And it's not throwing an error code. There's some kind of database flag that keeps turning over... might be a hardware problem. Where is the logic board for your navigational computer?"

"VI core," Willem said, "Back this way," and he lead her away from the command station through the cramped, awkwardly-shaped bridge of his utterly obsolete space craft to a pressure door in the rear corner of the room. Tali'Zorah looked around again, taking it all in with an amused glimmer in her eyes. MSV Majesty had been a military vessel once, and the busy design of its command deck reflected this. In the years before human beings But alongside ancient solid-state electronics and OLED display screens were newer holographic displays and haptic interfaces. The ship didn't have a mass effect drive, but it had been retrofitted with kinetic barriers, an FTL comms array, and some 76mm mass accelerators for self defense. It was as if somebody had installed a cot, a refrigerator and an extranet terminal in a mud hut and called it a mansion.

Tali'Zorah loved it. Ships like this were the heart and soul of the Flotilla.

Willem keyed in his access code to the VI core and the pressure door snapped and hissed open. Despite the nomenclature, it wasn't really much to look at, just a kind of walk-in closet full of little racks of shelves that contained the computer hardware that ran most of the systems on this ship. Tali'Zorah couldn't guess what this space had originally been used for, but it was hardly ideal for its current use. The room was too hot, too poorly ventilated, and moisture collected too easily. Willem wasn't doing a good enough job of keeping his circuits from overheating, so they were wearing out faster. "Do you happen to know... no, wait. I'll find it." She opened her omni-tool again, and asked for a local service. The ship responded by giving her access to its maintenance database, and from there she got the exact model number of the VI Willem was using. The schematics were available on the extranet (she'd already paid the 25 credit subscription for the download site) and in the time it took for Willem to wonder how she was planning to find whatever she was looking for, she had a rough layout of the VI hardware displayed on the her visor's heads-up display. Main navigational logic board, rack T5D.

She opened the rack, and her suit's surface sensors registered a gust of warm air well over fifty degrees celsius. "Well there's your problem."

"What is?" Willem tried to bend in to see what she was looking at. Tali'Zorah was half a head shorter than a grown human woman and had a midsection small enough that Willem's jacket collar would have fit around her waist. But the little closet into which the VI hardware had been crammed was too small to fit two bodies at once and he accomplished little except to bump his chin on the top of her helmet and repeatedly knee her in the ribs while attempting not to actually climb on top of her.

"You can't see it," Tali'Zorah said, gently pushing him back, "You can feel it. Don't you feel how warm it is in here?"

"Oh..." Willem shrugged, "Computers do get warm while they're running, though."

"And when they overheat, they malfunction, and when they malfunction, they overheat. The board for your navigational system is cooking itself to death." She reached right into the panel with both arms, squeezed into the narrow space, and gave a tug. The logic board for the nav computer lifted free, and somewhere else in the core a failsafe program cut in to kill whatever processes that board was working on so the entire system could shut down safely. MSV Majesty had just suffered a seizure.

"That was risky, wasn't it?" Willem asked.

"What was risky?" She held up the logic board in one hand and set her omni-tool to scan it with the other.

"Won't you die if you puncture that suit? I thought people in your species had compromised immune systems? Isn't that the whole reason why you have to wear that environment suit everywhere?" Captain Willem still had the breathless enthusiasm of curiosity still in his voice. He'd been at it like this for almost two days now, and this was at least the third time he'd asked this exact question. He'd originally hired her on a dare from one of his crew-members, but after she'd finished the repairs to his reaction thrusters he'd been so impressed that he wound up asking her to overall his entire navigation system. Tali suspected he was actually nursing a crush on her but hadn't figured out the emotional or biological logistics of crushing on an alien.

As quick as a thought, Tali'Zorah composed a response in her mind, set it to translate, and had the suit print out the equivalent of an English sentence on her heads up display. It was spelled phonetically, so she read it as clearly as she could: "Partially," she looked up from the logic board she was working on, her omni-tool fading from its glowing translucent orange to an almost ghostly transparency as it faded into standby mode, "There's also the fact that I breathe a different atmosphere than you do." The translucent visor on her helmet that hid most of her face also hid her display so that nobody else could see what she was looking at, so Willem had no idea that she was actually reading a machine translation in phonetic spelling. He probably just thought she had learned English with an accent.

"Your people don't breathe oxygen?"

Tali'Zorah tapped her visor with her finger and said, "Methane." And because it wasn't a denial, it wasn't technically a lie. The truth was more complicated, but Willem - like anyone else in the galaxy who wasn't a Quarian - didn't need to know that.

"Interesting..."

She went back to the circuit board, her omni-tool glowing a fiery orange. The suit's HUD was displaying a hugely magnified graphic of the board's circuit diagram and the many conductive pathways along its surface and the debug program was close to tracking down that one, microscopic fault that was causing Willem's intermittent glitches. It didn't take long to find it. As she suspected, at a microscopic level the entire board was warped and tortured from being heated too much for too long, but the real cause of the problem was a micro circuit gate in the power management chip that had overheated until it burst like a popcorn kernel. The damn thing was locking the entire array into a high voltage mode so that no matter how many times the circuit correctly calculated a navigational solution, the answer would always be 'Still working on it...'

She set her tool to inject a microscopic drop of omni-gel into the fault, and then got to work carefully dismantling and then rebuilding the faulty circuit.

"So I was wondering," Willem smiled, "Would you considering signing on with the Majesty for a few cycles? i find myself in dire need of a mechanic and you seem more than qualified."

Tali'Zorah Nar Raya vas Majesty. It certainly had a nice ring to it. The Majesty wasn't as big as most other ships in the Flotilla, but it was in better shape than some, and certainly more comfortable. Briefly, she wondered about the possibility of hijacking this ship and flying it back to the flotilla to enlisting it with the Patrol Fleet...

And that is exactly the kind of roguish vagabond heroism that gives Quarians a bad reputation. "I'm not sure," she said, giving the safe answer, "I'm worried that I would be tempted to do something a little more long term than that and then it would be hard to complete my pilgrimage." She didn't say who it would be hard for. This, also, wasn't technically a lie; if she stayed on this ship long enough, she just knew she was going to end up stealing it. "Besides, my life support requirements are pretty extreme. I would need my own cabin, and it would have to be thoroughly sterilized to eliminate any aerobic bacteria. I would need an alternate atmosphere and my own space. Also, maintenance equipment for my suit, and dextro-based food. Most things humans can digest are inedible to me."

"Really? But you have... aren't you people mammals?" Willem looked her up and down, and Tali'Zorah realized he was trying - and epically failing - to imagine what she looked like naked. Sighing, he added, "I guess that throws my next suggestion out the window."

"You mean the part where you ask me out to dinner and then try to figure out whether or not I can get by with just a breather rather than my whole suit?"

Tali'Zorah quietly finished the work on the circuit and shut down her omni-tool. She picked up the circuit card and showed it to Willem as if giving him a chance to inspect her work. She knew as well as he did that he had no way of checking the quality of the job just by looking at it, and wouldn't know the difference even if he could. It was esoteric work on a microscopic level, a small correction that made an enormous difference. Another fault might crop up later in a completely different or even a related system, and maybe Willem would finally realize that his computer system was older than a knock-knock joke and needed to be replaced (which it was, and did) or maybe he'd convince himself that the repairs hadn't been as good as she'd claimed and he would get the impression that the little Quarian bitch had swindled him out of five hundred credits that would have been better spent on a high-class prostitute. "Good as new," she said, turning it slowly in her hands.

"Elkoss Combine was going to charge me sixty five thousand for a replacement unit. I'll settle for 'good as used' at this point."

Inside her helmet, Tali smiled. Willem must have seen it in the glow from her eyes because his very next question was, "So how about that dinner? And how do I arrange to get something you can eat?"

"I'm sorry, I can't. Pilgrimage."

"You're not allowed to eat during a pilgrimage?"

"I'd have to take my helmet off. Which would mean having to sit in a methane atmosphere at three hundred and kilopascals that has been thoroughly decontaminated..."

"Okay, okay, I get it. Well, look, we've got this entire beautiful planet all around us," he gestured at the walls of the ship as if he could see through them, "And over at First Landing, some of the best shopping malls this side of Arcturus, so I figure I might as well help you find something for your pilgrimage as a thank you for all you did for me."

When she first left the Flotilla, Tali'Zorah befriended a young Turian shuttle pilot on Sanctum and the two of them wound up sharing a room together in the slums of the city. They'd been living together for eight days when her roommate, having somehow convinced herself that Tali'Zorah was his soul mate, override the temporary airlock to her bedroom and barged in wearing nothing but a thong and an oxygen mask. Tali'Zorah, who had just barely managed to get into her suit in fast enough to avoid being drowned in a flood of Turian mating hormones and aerobic bacterium, had never seen a naked Turian before, but the look on the young bird's face was exactly the kind of look that Willem was giving her now, and it was exactly the sort of thing that caused her to start carrying a knife in her boot. "I think I can find it on my own," she said, pleasantly enough to not be rude, "But thank you for the offer. I will seriously consider it."

"Let me know what you decide," he said, stepping back from her as if to give her room to maneuver, "We're planning to depart in just a few hours, you know."

"If I don't make it back, Captain, I wish you a safe journey. Keelah se'lai." Tali'Zorah bowed slightly, and then climbed up the ladder to the airlock module in the deck above them.

She sent the electronic command to the airlock and the inner hatch sealed closed. The compartment cycled through, equalizing interior and exterior pressure. While she waited, she watched as four different corners of the room lit up at once and saw the sweeping beams of ultraviolet lasers spraying her body from head to toe with intersecting fans of light. This was, she was told, a standard human practice to avoid spreading virulent diseases between alien biospheres as they traveled through space; it was certainly a nice thought, but the UV scans alone were nowhere near effective enough for that. A Quarian returning to the flotilla, for example, would first be bathed in an antiseptic solution and then exposed to a strain of genetically modified bacteriophages that would swarm through her bloodstream and eat anything that wasn't at least 98% genetically Quarian. The Xenophage was thorough enough that fertilized women couldn't risk exposure, because the bacterium occasionally devoured the fertilized eggs they were carrying.

Of course, one version of the strain had been engineered to intentionally do this in what half the species of the galaxy still considered a war crime.

No alcohol bath and xenophage treatment today. The airlock cycled and the hatch opened, and Tali'Zorah climbed the access ladder up and out of the ship and onto the gantry of the First Landing spaceport.

The heavy lift cargo dock that now enclosed MSV Majesty was essentially a giant hole carved out of the ground, a hundred meters wide and two hundred long, and deep enough that the top/front of the ship could be level with the ground even while its main drives a hundred meters below were held suspended above the blast dampeners with plenty of room to space. The humans called this place "First Landing" because it was quite literally the first place their ships landed when they began to survey the planet. The ExoGeni research team had descended to the surface on orbital shuttles at first, taken samples of the local flora and fauna and spent six months painstakingly examining biocompatibility and pathogenic responses, trying to determine whether the water was safe to drink, whether local plants and animals were edible and what their nutritional value might be. The landing pads and heavy lift docks that had sprung up around the research station came to be known by merchant traders as a cheaper alternative to the more modern spaceports along the coast, and now First Landing had become a sort of harbor town and trading post, with more landing pads and cargo warehouses being built and expanded all the time. Just standing on the gantry over the MSV Majesty, Tali'Zorah could see the outlines of over a dozen ships standing on their landing pads, bathed in floodlight as the sun rose slowly above the mountains.

Almost all of them were human ships. A few of them were ex-military surplus like the Majesty, a few others were squat barrel-shaped transports of a more modern design that merely emulated the old styles. They all followed similar design conventions: a cylindrical main hull on top of a much larger drive section that was usually composed of several large propellant tanks surrounding a fusion reactor and an engine. They were all designed with their deck structure perpendicular to the axis of thrust so that either the ship's constant acceleration or the pull of whatever planet was directly underneath them would provide gravity for the crew. It was a feature common to ships built by pre-mass effect cultures, but Tali'Zorah understood that the newer human merchant ships were being designed this way too. MSV Majesty even had a perfectly modern mass effect drive mounted beneath its fusion reactor, but the drive only served to accelerate its plasma exhaust; the ship and crew were still subject to G-forces when the drive was on, and so the decks were still arranged to take advantage of these forces in the form of artificial gravity...

"On second thought," she looked down at the Majesty, down the length of the ship and the docking clamps holding it in place like a set of giant hands holding a package. Slowly, she shook her head. What good was a ship that only had gravity while it was under thrust? Even the smallest ships on the Flotilla had centrifuges installed. Majesty would need to be retrofitted if they ever wanted to get any use out of it.

She sighed - not that she'd seriously thought she might steal the ship anyway - and walked out across the gangway to the little security station that lead to the rest of the spaceport.

Well... calling First Landing a "spaceport" was actually kind of generous. The science station at the center of it all was still in use, but since the discovery of the prothean beacon six months ago, all the real serious research had moved elsewhere. The place had no real traffic control, no customs enforcement, and no real facilities for the maintenance and servicing of ships other than the slush hydrogen tanks that various people had installed around the facility and that various other people got the ExoGeni science team to pay them to keep filled. So it wasn't a "port" so much as it was a giant semi-illegal parking lot for space ships. Some day, Eden Prime's colonial government would get sick of this place's shenanigans and come down here to impose some law and order, but until then, it was just a free port Kibutz where people lived on their own terms and didn't have to be responsible to anyone or for anything, no matter how badly they screwed up. This also made this place relatively dangerous, which meant there was a very strong market for private security guards here.

There was a quad bike idling on the ground just outside the security station, and a man in full military-style powered armor was standing next to it. The armor was complicated-looking black and white powered armor with yellow detailing and the logo of Elanus Risk Control on the left side of the breastplate. It carried an assault rifle and a shotgun at the two weapon stations on the back. Unlike Tali'Zorah's helmet, the tinted visor on this suit was deliberately opaque; the person behind the mask was meant to be anonymous and threatening. He turned his attention to Tali'Zorah with just the subtlest turn of his head, held still for a long moment and seemed to track her as she stepped out of the elevator. She watched him out of the corner of her eye as she walked, waiting for the provocation she knew was coming any second...

"So the rumors are true," said a tinny voice from the vicinity of the powered armor's helmet, "Ole Cap Willem's got himself a new pet suit rat."

Tali'Zorah ignored him and kept walking. She chose to focus on other details, particularly the scenery around her. The tall trees that had grown out of the gravely soil beyond the perimeter of the landing pad, the strange four-winged birds that flew overhead and darted around in the morning sun. She wondered if Rannoch had ever been something like this before...

"How'd you convince the old man to hire you?" said the voice again. Too close to be calling after her, and checking her suit's proximity sensors confirmed that, yes, he was following her from a short distance. "Not that I can't guess. Willem's a sucker for a nice piece of ass..."

"I haven't agreed to work for him," Tali'Zorah said, glancing over her shoulder, "My business here isn't finished."

"Oh really? You're staying on Eden Prime?"

"Until I can find a ship heading for the Terminus Systems, yes." She redoubled her pace, meaning to pull ahead of him.

"You have papers for that?" he asked.

Tali'Zorah ignored the question. Even if Eden Prime's government had a formal immigration policy - which it didn't - First Landing was far outside the jurisdiction of the central government. The security guard probably knew this, but assumed that Tali'Zorah didn't.

Or rather, she thought with alarm, he assumed that she shouldn't know this because aliens had no business knowing human business, and if they did know then they were probably spies...

"Hold it right there," came the inevitable call.

Dammit. This again...

"Empty your pockets and all your pouches."

Tali'Zorah turned around and faced the guard. "What? Why?"

"Willem is a local. He's a friend of ours. And whatever you stole from his ship, you're not welcome to it."

"I didn't steal anything from his ship."

"So empty your damn pockets and prove it!"

She weighed her options for a moment. Elanus Risk Control didn't have an official contract on this planet, and the presence of this particular guard was something of an anomaly. Yes. Merc bands and military contractors wandered through First Landing like pyjacks through a landfill, and usually offered security services (as well as "protection" services) to any ships that happened to be in port at the time. These mini-contracts lasted exactly as long as they stayed in the area, usually for a handful of days or weeks, and then they were gone, moved on to wherever else they were going. This particular jackass couldn't have belonged to anything bigger than a fire team, and he certainly didn't have the whole weight of the colony's law enforcement aparatus behind him. Tali'Zorah could have hit his armor with an energy drain and reduced it to a full body cast, or she could have blown malware into his motion controllers and left him lurching around in circles like a tin woodsman. She could have hacked his heads-up display and filled his personal view with a never-ending barrage of Krogan pornography and then stood over his writhing, tortured form to listen to the screams.

But he was a human in the middle of a barely-legal human colony with an at best tenuous grasp of the concept of due process. If she took him down, simple xenophobia would give him plenty of allies. One rude asshole on a power trip could easily become a lynch mob...

Tali'Zorah sighed and opened the leather clips on her storage pouches on her upper arms while the guard poked a pen light inside and fiddled through them with his gloved fingertips. She held her arms out to the side and let the guard pad through the packs on her belt and on her upper legs. She tensed briefly when he paused, wondering for a moment if there was something she was carrying he found objectionable. She couldn't imagine what that might have been; she didn't have anything in her possession except a dozen dextro-protein food tubes and some cans of spray-on sealant for her exo-suit...

"What the hell is that?" said the armor's speaker.

Tali'Zorah tensed. "It's just food rations. I can't eat most of the things humans can eat, so-" a strange, distant sound caught her attention and she realized that the guard wasn't paying attention to her anymore. The sound, like a deep foghorn growl on a colossal scale, was coming from far off in the east, in the direction of Constant and Xiong Spaceport where the more respectable colonists all lived. Something in that direction had descended from the clouds and was now hovering like a giant insect over the horizon. Tali'Zorah watched it descend at what seemed to be a languid pace, its mechanical legs spread out like a grasping hand reaching for the ground...

And then the thing landed.

The flash of light where it made contact made her think for a moment that the entire object must have been some sort of huge complicated bomb. But if that were the case, the blast would have shattered half the planet and not just lit up the sky. No, this was something much more benign despite its immense power. It was, she realized, a static discharge from a starship making contact with a solid surface and releasing the electrical potential from its drive core. The ship had actually dumped so much of its waste energy into the planet's surface that it had detonated a large portion of its crust with enough energy to flatten a small city.

The ground trembled beneath her feet as the shockwave finally reached her, and a moment later a sudden gale of displaced air washed over them. The thing that had caused it vanished into a column or rising orange fire almost as bright as a star. And Tali'Zorah counted the time from the flash to the shockwave and realized the thing that had just landed here was over twenty kilometers away.

It was that far away, and they could still see it. Which meant that whatever it was, it was enormous, easily one of the biggest ships Tali'Zorah had ever seen. Only the Quarian liveships were bigger, and each one of those housed enough useful surface area to feed a thousand people for a year.

"Well, shit..." said the security guard, a slight tremor in his voice, "You better get out of here, kid. I'm thinking this aint a safe place to stand anymore."

Not exactly moved by his sudden concern, Tali'Zorah asked, "What are you planning to do? Mount a defense?"

"Oh hell no. The Boss is probably spooling up for launch before whoever-they-are come this way. If you got half a brain in that helmet, you'll do the same."

"Thanks so much for keeping us all safe from the bad guys," Tali'Zorah said. And as he started to leave, something else occurred to her and she called out, "Hey! If you're leaving the planet, can I have your bike?"

The Guard looked at the quad bike like he was seeing it for the first time. Then he glanced back at her and shrugged his huge armored shoulders, "Knock yourself out."


	4. Chapter 3

**3 - SSV Normandy: April 8th, 2183**

On most Alliance attack ships, a full mission briefing would take place in the conference room or the war room or some kind of large tactical center where the situation could be discussed by the officers not engaged in running the actual ship. Normandy was too small of a vessel for that; the Comm Room was only large enough to fit three or four people so long as all of them really liked each other. The ship's mess was the second logical choice, but the holographic monitors weren't ideally placed for conveying information. That left the cargo bay and the CIC, and in the CIC the command station was high enough and positioned in the right way to make a lectern that Captain Anderson used this room for briefings and conferences.

The triangular center console formed a wedge that divided twenty marines - almost the entirety of Normandy's crew - between the flight specialists to starboard and the ground team to port, where Captain Anderson hovered above the command station, high enough that he could put his hands on the ceiling to keep himself in place and everyone in the room had to look through the holo field to see him. Lieutenant Commander Shepard floated at the point of the console in the center of the divide, perched on the point of the triangle like an eagle on a branch. The others had collected in a loose knot more or less oriented with their feet towards the deck, keeping themselves in position with gentle touches of hand holds on the floor and ceiling and the support columns that encircled the room.

The holographic field above the triangular console had been displaying a graphical representation of the Normandy when the crew arrived, but at a touch of Captain' Anderson's hand on the controls it switched first to a galaxy map display and then zoomed in until it showed a floating representation of the Utopia star system, along with a moving blip that represented Normandy's position. The ship's orbital trajectory was traced in green, with an arrow facing along that line away from the blue-green dot labeled Eden Prime. Everyone in the room knew that meant the ship was near the end of its braking maneuver, the main engines firing retrograde to their path to slow the ship down to a more reasonable velocity to enter the planet's atmosphere.

Nihlus had planted his feet on the wall behind Anderson and hadn't moved so much as a muscle in almost an hour. Most of the crew had forgotten he was even on board, the rest assumed he had fallen asleep and that not even Captain Anderson had the balls to wake him up and move him.

As the display shifted, Captain Anderson began the briefing with his usual opening, "Shepard? Are we ready?"

The Lieutenant Commander searched the room, met the eyes of every man and woman assembled here, and then nodded on their behalf. "We're ready, Captain."

"Alright, people. Here's the situation. Four months ago, a construction crew working in the northern sector of Xiong Memorial Spaceport discovered an alien structure buried beneath a layer of sedimentary rock. This structure was soon confirmed to be prothean in origin, and a science team was sent to investigate. Ten days later, the science team discovered a structure whose position and design were both consistent with a long-range mass effect communications complex. Investigation of this structure soon lead to the discovery of an intact, repeat, intact communications beacon. Given the robustness and longevity of Prothean technology, there is a very high probability that this beacon can easily be restored to full functionality."

No one moved. No one even breathed. The gravity of his words made all of them feel strangely heavy despite the Normandy's current weightlessness.

"Commander?" Anderson tilted his chin towards Shepard.

She picked up the details without missing a beat. "While we were sleeping, the marine garrison at Eden Prime setup a security perimeter and the scientists at the site have been putting the beacon under a microscope. Unfortunately, the colony's science facilities are not equipped to handle a find like this, so our orders are to transfer the beacon, the researchers and all of their preliminary findings to the Citadel for further study. At fourteen hundred fifty hours shipboard time, we will touch down at landing complex thirty nine at Xiong Memorial Spaceport. Ground Force will assemble into three fire teams, temporarily assigned. Lieutenant Pakti will lead Private Fredericks, Private Chase, Corporal Waaberi and Sergeant Dubyansky as Fireteam Guardian. Lieutenant Alenko, Corporal Jenkins, and myself will accompany Spectre Nihlus as Fireteam Mantis. Corporal Tucks, Chief Barret and Chief Postle will form Fireteam Survivor.

"The game plan is as follows," Shepard opened her omni-tool and tapped a command there. The holo field flickered and a translucent display of Eden Prime's main spaceport appeared. It was a coastal facility, a row of several dozen landing pads all built on concrete and steel platforms a few hundred meters apart. The northernmost landing platform, barely completed, was indicated with a pulsing circle, as was another location three and a half kilometers north of it marked by the label 'dig site.' Shepard zoomed in on this area as she continued, "Fire Team Guardian will provide site security and coordinate with local law enforcement and the Marine Garrison at the location to maintain a perimeter of at least one kilometer from our landing site. This must be done immediately, but operations will not delay for a perimeter breach. Mantis will secure the payload at the dig site and facilitate transfer to the Normandy for retrieval. Survivor, you'll be collecting the scientists and personnel who originally uncovered the artifact and make sure all principals are accounted for along with all needed equipment and personal affects. You have the hardest job, because you have to police up those civilians and get them moving in a reasonable amount of time, and the eggheads are likely to insist on making two trips so they won't forget their prothean barbie doll collections or whatever."

This got a chuckle, in the deadpan sort of way of people who knew it wasn't actually funny and that it was going to really suck having to deal with it for real and that somehow made it even funnier.

Shepard went on, "Friendly forces are in the area maintaining heightened security near the dig site. We'll be working with elements of the two hundred and twelfth and the two thirty second Expeditionary Combat Teams. Both units are about the same strength as us. That's twenty marines and three UT-41 Klondike shuttles. Remember, they've been doing this already for half a year, so trust them to know the terrain and the situation as well or better than you do. Once again, Guardian will have the job of coordinating with those friendly forces in the area to maintain a perimeter of at least one kilometer. I suggest making very good use of those shuttles, since Normandy will not be available for overwatch."

"This has to be done with the utmost caution," Captain Anderson said, "The information stored within this beacon could be a boon to the entire galactic community. We cannot afford to allow even the slightest-"

"Captain! We've got a problem!" It was the shipboard intercom and not the direct line to Anderson. So it was the sort of problem that didn't call for discretion. And Lieutenant Moreau's voice carried a deep, powerful tension that even his pathological sarcasm couldn't dissipate.

Shepard instinctively checked the battery level on her hardsuit's barriers.

"What's wrong Joker?" Anderson asked.

"I just lost the comm buoys at Eden Prime! All transmissions from the system have completely stopped!"

Anderson hesitated for a long moment, wondering why exactly Joker would be calling to warn him about something like this. "Priority connections?"

Nihlus stirred too, pushing off the wall and catching the rail next to Anderson like a diver maneuvering in a coral reef.

"Even the military channels are dead," Moreau said, "None of the beacons are responding. We got a big burst of emergency traffic starting about two minutes ago, and then the blackout."

Instinctively, Anderson and Nihlus both turned to the holo tank and started calling up extranet windows from Xiong's navigational services. Every one of those screens flickered and displayed the triangle-and-exclamation-mark 'trouble' symbols as the computer failed to locate the servers.

But Normandy was a stealth reconnaissance ship; it wasn't just a combat vessel, it was also a spy, constantly listening to everything around it. The computers in the comm room listened and recorded and the ship's VI was programmed to categorize its many intercepted transmissions for easy analysis.

So to his command console, Anderson said simply, "Replay last transmission on any military or emergency channel from three minutes prior to loss of signal."

The VI responded with a pleasant but enthusiastic beep. Immediately, the holo field in the center of the room was replaced by one large video window, probably shot from a news camera or or a photojournalist, judging by the quality.

At exactly three minutes prior to loss of signal, the video showed an Alliance Marine in red and white battle armor, backpedaling through a knee-high swampland. She was firing in short bursts from an M7 assault rifle at a target the cameraman couldn't seem to keep in frame; whatever it was, it was firing back, and the marine scrambled for cover as a stream of blue-white projectiles zipped over the top of her helmet. Then the image shifted - the cameraman had paused recording for some unknown length of time - and the marine was running towards him through tall grass. Enemy fire pinged off her kinetic barriers, making little auroras dance around the skin of her armor. She ignored it, focussing instead on the cameraman. "Get down!" she shouted, and gave a shove. The camera showed a view of the sky, then the ground, and then the same marine standing over him, firing again, then moving.

The camera swung around violently, trying to get a picture of whatever it was she was shooting at. Something grey and vaguely humanoid jittered across the screen for a moment, then another... a row of somethings moving in close formation, firing off weapons Shepard didn't recognize. Someone off camera fired a Carnage grenade; and one of the things exploded, and a moment later, someone screamed.

The camera shifted again. More passage of time. This time a man in yellow and grey assault armor was shouting into the camera, "We are under attack! Taking heavy casualties! I repeat, heavy casualties! We can't ar-" another carnage grenade zipped past his helmet, heading in the direction of his attackers. He didn't really seem to notice; he was clutching the sides of his helmet as if his ears were in pain. "We need evac!" he shouted/grunted, "Heavily outnumbered! We need ev-" the camera registered a sharp metal crack and suddenly there was a fist-sized hole in the marine's chest. He fell backwards like a sack of baseballs, and the camera fell sideways.

Under the rattle and pulse of gunfire and microartillery, a new sound had bullied its way into the universe. A deep, rumbling metallic sound, like the blast of a million horns sounding the lowest possible note that a human ear could still recognize as a sound at all. The camera field became totally still, as did the three marines caught in the frame at that moment. All of them frozen in something not completely unlike terror, petrified as they looked up at the sky at the source of that horrible sound. And once the man holding the camera came back to his senses, he turned his recorder in that same direction.

For an instant, a shape. Something airborne, something massive. Something that was descending through the cloud layers, flashes of red lightning all around it.

Static in the recording doubled, as did enemy fire a moment later. A glimpse of a marine ducking towards the treeline, kinetic barriers flaring as sheets of gunfire poured across his back. More static, more fire. The cameraman muttered something in Russian that Shepard could only interpret as 'to hell with this.' And then the recording ended. The cameraman had chosen that exact moment to upload his recording to the extranet. Whatever might have happened next...

"That's the last transmission?" Anderson asked, "Fourteen hundred seventeen and..." he looked at the timestamp, "Forty nine seconds?

"Aye, Captain," Joker said, "Everything cuts out after that. No extranet, no comm traffic at all. There's just nothing."

"Reverse and hold at thirty eight point five," Anderson said. The VI somehow realized he was talking to it and did as he asked. The video reversed back, and then stopped.

The shape was there, frozen in a single clear frame. The thing that had made that horrible sound was descending through a layer of thick clouds with a curtain of thick crimson lightning flashing around it. It looked, if anything, like a gigantic metal hand, as if an angry god was reaching out of the heavens to grab a mountain-sized fistful of Eden Prime soil. It was hard to judge distance or scale, except that whatever it was it was massive, and it was descending directly on top of Xiong spaceport.

The hardened mandibles that passed for Nihlus' cheeks gave an involuntary twitch.

Anderson thundered, "Travel time to the planet?"

"Seventeen minutes out, Captain. No other Alliance ships in the area."

"Take is in, Joker. Fast and quiet."

"Aye, Captain."

Anderson frowned, "This mission just got a lot more complicated."

Like it wasn't complicated enough, Shepard thought. "Strike my last, marines. This operation is now force recon, free fire ROE. Combat drops are indicated with deployment only as needed."

"A small strike team can move quickly without drawing attention," Nihlus added, "It's our best chance to secure the beacon."

Anderson nodded. "Agreed..."

"Mantis will perform a combat drop on the direct approach," Shepard said, "Once Joker and Presley spot us a landing site, we'll go in hard. Guardian and Survivor on standby."

"That's the play, then. Grab your gear and head down to the crew deck. Flight crew, man battle stations for atmospheric penetration!"

The room emptied almost immediately; the eight flight officers scattered like a school of gold fish and pushed themselves towards the bow, slipping into the operations seats that lined both sides of the forward corridor. Most of the marines, meanwhile, disbursed in almost exactly opposite directions; four of the marines took up guard positions near the doors to the CIC while the others went below decks to start preparing for a possible combat drop.

Nihlus turned from the holo tank and traced a path along the ceiling until he got to the stairwell leading below. The marines ahead of him parted like the sea and he passed them as if he hadn't even noticed them.

Shepard stared at the image, burning the thing into her mind. She could tell she was only seeing part of it, but whatever it was, she couldn't even begin to guess. It didn't even resemble anything familiar. A complete unknown.

"Alenko. Jenkins." The two marines were still in the room, staring at the holo field almost as transfixed as Shepard. "Suit up," Shepard said, "We're going in."

...

...

The Capital of Eden Prime was a tower called Constant, which in a previous life had also been the colonial transport vessel MSV Constant before the settlers landed it and converted its engines into a manufacturing plant. Constant was one of several hundred enormous structures that dotted the surface of the planet now, each tower rising over a thousand meters into the sky, supporting between four and eight thousand people in so-called "post-urban" developments. Post-urban colonies were known by one term or another to most of the civilized species of the galaxy; they were an attempt to compact all the amenities of modern society - hospitals, stores, public parks, indoor plumbing, shopping centers, public spaces, manufacturing centers, schools and offices - into the smallest possible horizontal footprint. The idea was to avoid an ever-expanding and inefficient urban sprawl and make a minimal impact on a planet's local ecology while also still being able to support huge populations in relative comfort and safety. This didn't always work the way it was intended, but Eden Prime was one of the more inspiring examples of its success.

Three quarters of a million people lived in these tower dwellings, and between them they controlled much of the money, resources and political influence of Eden Prime's budding new society. But in recent years the post-urbanites had started to be out-numbered by pre-fab shelters and co-ops setup by hardy outdoorsmen, survivalists, adventurers and aspiring farmers. With year-round temperate climate, mild rains and few predators, Eden Prime was even more attractive to people who preferred the comfort of wide open spaces and total independence to the clockwork, carefully engineered convenience of post-urban life. The arcologies may have offered better services and a more cosmopolitan way of life, but the kinds of people who made Eden Prime the success it had become had arrived here looking for a much simpler, humbler existence.

Most of the new development, therefore, was taking place outside of the pre-planned tower communities, much to the chagrin of the colony's wealthier residents. The new Xiong Memorial spaceport had been built near the shoreline of a temperate coast, roughly in the center of most of the homesteading development; a five kilometer tram ride would take new arrivals to Aguilar Station where the Baria Frontiers Corporation had its new headquarters. Both of these stations had their own fusion reactors, supply depots for ships and colonists, and a small market of sorts where farmers and tradesmen could come to buy and sell. These two linked complexes made the heart of a community that valued independence and personal freedom but still wanted to be a community in some form.

At the moment, however, most of the prefab towns and communities lay scattered and broken around a tormented landscape, knocked from their foundations and tossed about like paper cups in a thunderstorm. A huge column of black smoke was rising from a deep crater near the center of the spaceport campus, and all around it the evidence of a colossal blast that had flattened buildings and displaced shelters and structures for kilometers in every direction. It looked like someone had dropped a nuclear warhead right in the center of the spaceport and then melted ground zero into glass for good measure.

So of course, the geostamp from that last recording put right in the middle of it all.

Lieutenant Moreau made his approach from the east, flying the Normandy at nearly treetop level in hopes of avoiding detection. With the stealth drive engaged and the ship's emission sinks active, Normandy's thermal signature was identical to the surrounding air, but anyone with a decent lidar system or at least a working pair of eyes would still be able to see it.

A few kilometers short of the spaceport, Normandy passed over a huge rectangular depression the size of a soccer field, carved into the ground in neat terraces that converged on a deep, wide shaft in the center. Around the excavation, smooth angular towers with triangular tips pointed skywards. The distinct hallmarks of ancient prothean architecture.

Newer and larger towers were up ahead of them now, these showing the more familiar patterns of human architecture the closer they got. It was here alone that the first signs of violence became evident: streaks of tracer rounds cut through the sky, flashes of light and explosions as isolated skirmishes raged for tens of kilometers in every direction. Two UT-47 Kodiak shuttles passed overhead and began firing at some unseen target on the ground; something on the ground fired back at them with a weapon that looked like a glowing blue fireball and sent one of the Kodiaks tumbling almost out of control.

Lieutenant Presley swiped his fingers across his tracking console, a soft grunt as his sensors told him what he already knew. "Joker, are you seeing this?"

"I see it, alright. Radar and lidar both. Somebody's got some serious jamming tech out here."

From the CIC, Captain Anderson said, "I'm marking drop points for the Makos. Set for deployment."

Two new navigational points appeared on Joker's screens. Both of them were on the other side of a deep, broad valley on the least-developed side of Xiong Spaceport. So Captain's going for subtlety... "Roger. Vectoring in on drop point one. Fifty five seconds."

Anderson switched off the intercom and toggled to the ground team channel. "You loaded up, Shepard?"

Two decks below in the vehicle bay, Commander Shepard was just sealing the armored hatch on forward compartment M-35 Mako infantry fighting vehicle. Lieutenant Alenko was in the seat to her right, patching the ship's sensor readings into the Mako's computer to update its internal topographical maps. Behind and between them, Corporal Jenkins was seated at the controls for the tank's main gun turret with a look of wild excitement in his eyes. "Locked and loaded, Captain," Shepard said, strapping herself down, "So what's the plan?"

"Nihlus will scout ahead," Anderson said, "He'll feed you status reports throughout the mission. Your team's the muscle in this operation. Go in heavy and head straight for the dig site. Maintain radio silence except for absolute emergencies until you've secured the beacon."

"What about survivors, Captain?" Lieutenant Alenko asked.

The inner door at the front of the vehicle bay began to hiss open. A kinetic barrier had already snapped into place to keep the air pressure from dropping and to keep the wind from blowing into the bay; outside it, the landscape of Eden Prime rolled beneath them as Normandy continued its descent.

"Helping survivors is your secondary objective," Anderson said, "The beacon is your top priority!"

"Approaching drop point one!" Joker announced.

To their left, the other Mako IFV began to stir as its engines powered up. Lieutenant Jenkins chirped, "Nihlus! You dropping without a gunner?"

The hold down clamps in the deck released the other Mako and it began to rock gently on its wheels. "I move faster on my own," said the Turian over the comm channel. Moreau counted down on the intercom, and then at "zero" all four of the small thrusters on the underside of the Mako fired. The vehicle had just barely risen off the deck when it suddenly shot forward like a bullet propelled out of a gun, racing into the distance. And then it was gone, falling out of view, disappearing behind them.

Almost immediately, Normandy turned hard to starboard and began to ascend again, circling back towards the edge of the valley.

"Ready to roll, Skipper," Shepard said.

The landscape shifted and Normandy dipped its nose again. "Approaching drop point two," Joker announced, "Sandby for kick in five... four... three... two... one..."

At zero, Commander Shepard gently pulled the leaver between their seats, firing the Mako's jump thrusters at ten percent power, just enough to take the weight off its wheels. At that exact moment, Lieutenant Moreau cut power to the main engines and fired a strong pulse from the Normandy's retro thrusters, and the stealth recon ship dropped so much airspeed so fast that the Mako was simply thrown out of the cargo bay and into the open air along with anything else in the bay that wasn't properly bolted down.

Rapid Deployment, she told herself, remembering the jargon. Nobody ever bothered to actually land starships in a combat zone to offload troops. Every Marine was a paratrooper, and even their vehicles were just spaceships with wheels; the fastest way to get off of a starship was to open the door and jump, and the fastest way to get to reduce your airspeed was to slam your vehicle into the ground. The M-35 Mako was specifically designed to do both of those things, and for some reason nobody thought this was crazy.

"Seven hundred," Alenko reported, watching the radar altimeter, "Six fifty... six hundred... five fifty... five hundred... four hundred meters... terminal velocity!"

"Thrusters active," Shepard said, and for the second time, pulled the lever between their seats, opening it to full thrust.

The four mass effect jump thrusters flared to brilliance on the bottom of the tank, glowing an otherworldly blue as the vehicle descended. She felt the sudden onset of normal gravity and quite a bit more as the tank began to decelerate.

"Two hundred... one fifty... one hundred... seventy meters... thirty meters..." Alenko clenched his teeth and gripped his restraints. Jenkins did the same, and Commander Shepard held onto the steering wheel with arms straight and her body tensed for impact. Oh God, I hate this part...

The Mako hit the ground about as softly as a fifteen ton armored vehicle would be expected to, which is to say amazingly hard. It kicked up an explosion of dust and topsoil, bounced and skidded almost a dozen meters before finally coming to rest in the center of a clearing. Shepard caught her breath, shook off the blunt force of the impact, then slammed her foot on the gas and started moving.

The way ahead was mostly clear, just thin forests and grasslands between here and Xiong Spaceport. Alenko's navigational display told them they had come down about three kilometers south of the port, which in turn was about four kilometers east of the excavation site that had unearthed the Prothean Beacon. As they drove, Shepard looked through the mission summary Anderson had uploaded to her hardsuit computer. The prothean ruins on this planet had been discovered years ago, but excavations had found very little of value here in all that time. It was the same as it was in most places prothean ruins were found: a lot of rubble, a few fragments of what might have once been defunct technology, and every indication that the burried ruins had once been a fully populated and thriving city until whatever happened to the rest of the Prothean civilization finally happened here. And still no one had any clue what that was, although the theories were endless...

"What do you think, Commander?" Jenkins was saying. Shepard had been dimly aware he and Alenko had been talking to each other but hadn't been listening to what was said, "We're not just gonna grab the beacon and run, are we? I'm itching for some real action!"

"I hope you're joking, Corporal," Alenko said, "Most 'real action' usually ends with Doctor Chakwas patching up crew members in the infirmary."

Shepard nodded over her shoulder, "I need you to calm down, Jenkins. A good soldier stays cool, even under fire."

"Sorry, Commander. But this waiting's killing me. I've never been on a mission like this before. Not one with a Specter on board!"

"Just treat this like every other assignment you've had and everything will work out..." Shepard checked the threat warning panel on the overhead display. It was still showing nothing of note, but it wasn't showing any reflection from the trees or the rocks they were passing either. They're still jamming us even at this range, she thought.

"Easy for you to say," Jenkins growled, "You proved yourself on Akuze. Everyone knows what you can do. This is my big chance! I need to show the brass what I can do!"

"This mission isn't about personal glory, Corporal! We have a job to do! Don't do anything stupid to mess it up!"

"Don't worry Ma'am! I'm not gonna screw this up!"

The threat display flickered, with multiple contacts suddenly appearing and disappearing at the edge of detection range. Sensor artifacts appearing, with the computer not being sure how to make sense of them. But they were all appearing in roughly the same direction, bearing zero one three degrees. Which put them roughly in the direction of the secondary dig site that had discovered the beacon. Shepard checked the navigational display again. Eight hundred meters now to the dig site.

Go in heavy and head straight to the beacon. Those were Anderson's orders. But going in a large armored vehicle with no infantry support and totally blind at that...

Shepard brought the Maco to a stop just short of a shallow creek and shut down the engine. "We'll take it on foot from here."

Alenko glanced at her, "You sure about that, Commander?"

"We've got no sensors out here. No way to know what's ahead of us. If they see us before we see them..."

"Got it. Right behind you."

Jenkins dismounted first, throwing open the side hatch and climbing down to the soft grassy soil. Shepard opened the transparent hatch on the side of the seat and dropped smoothly out while Alenko did the same on the opposite side. All of their weapons were already mounted on the two service hardpoints on the backs of their suits, and now deployed, they unstowed them and unfolded them from their storage mode to their service configuration. Jenkins' standard rifle - the M8 Avenger he'd been issued at basic and had somehow convinced himself was a really effective modern weapon - unfolded to almost twice its stowed size in his hand and he spent a few overly optimistic moments checking the calibration on its telescopic sight. Shepard's weapon, an M-92 Mantis sniper rifle, was also standard Alliance issue, but not standard Alliance spec; she'd modded it with high explosive rounds and a gyroscopically balanced targeting system that was actually capable of providing useful feedback to her hardsuit. In two and a half years of using this weapon, Commander Shepard had scored twenty six confirmed kills, eighteen of which had been head shots.

Lieutenant Alenko carried no visible weapons at all except for the standard M3 sidearm at his hip holster. Shepard knew from his service record that what the Lieutenant actually carried wouldn't be visible until he decided to use it.

She lead them across the creek and up a slope that would have been too narrow for the Mako to pass through on its own. If anyone was waiting in ambush for them at this point, they'd be expecting a large armored vehicle and not three soldiers sticking to cover. Her hardsuit's threat detection - displayed as a phantom image in her field of view - only had a range of about sixty meters, but even this was still throwing up phantom images blinking in and out of existence all around her.

"Alenko," Shepard said, "Take point. Jenkins, drag tail."

Alenko responded by pumping his fist and then moved in front. Jenkins took position behind her, bringing up the rear with his crappy assault rifle. Shepard set the pace, keeping her head on a swivel, but her attention was divided elsewhere.

She had her hardsuit pump its raw data into her neural interface and listened to the static as much as watched a graphical representation. There was nothing recognizable in the signal input, except that there was a lot of it and it was coming through on a lot of different frequencies. On a hunch, she told her hardsuit to cycle through radio frequencies in narrow bands, first in amplitude and then in frequency modulation, and listened as it began its sweep.

"This place got hit hard, Commander. Hostiles everywhere. Be on your guard." She didn't recognize the voice at first, but then she realized it was because she had gotten used to hearing it with a slight flanged echo. Nihlus must be close to the research station, she thought. Nice of him not to tell us what the hostiles actually look like.

"This place smells like smoke and death." This time it was Alenko, his voice barely a whisper. He wasn't using the helmet radio, speaking just loud enough to be heard but not loud enough to give away their position. He was nervous, she could tell, and reaching out to his squamates. But he was also staying off the comms, which meant he knew enough to keep radio silence as ordered...

Then something crackled out of her comms, and Shepard paused, lifting her fist to signal the others. It was a low pitched electronic stuttering sound, like the recording of a tree frog with extremely choppy audio. She listened to it for a few seconds, but nothing in it was recognizable. There wasn't a pattern to it, exactly, but the way it sounded it was almost certainly some form of communication. If it wasn't a language, it was at least a code.

Shepard programmed her omni-tool to ignore all other transmissions except for sources of that specific signal at that specific frequency. As soon as she did, three small contacts lit up on the edge of her threat detection, fifty meters ahead, circling slowly. She couldn't see them from where she was, but she could tell by their position that they were obscured by an outcropping of rocks ahead and slightly uphill to the right. Still circling slowly... but not slowly enough to be walking.

So what makes a sound like that and moves like a kid on a skateboard? she asked herself. Of course, there was only one way to find out.

She signaled Jenkins forward, and with another hand signal told Alenko to cover him. Jenkins checked the charge on his assault rifle and then advanced, with Alenko just a few paces behind him.

Shepard's threat display blinked, and one of the circling contacts stopped circling. Then all three of them began to move in a slow side-to-side motion. Shepard knew this pattern. Combat drones of some sort. Must be making a barrier formation. No wonder Nihlus hadn't told them who they were fighting; simple combat drones wouldn't give many clues as to who was operating them.

But two could play at that game.

Shepard toggled the functions on her hardsuit computer and charged her omni-tool's EMP. One concentrated blast of microwave radiation at just the right frequency could usually overload the kinetic barriers of anything smaller than a main battle tank. She'd follow up with the usual VI logic bomb, just in case those drones were autonomous and not remote controlled like she suspected they were. And if all that failed - or even if it succeeded - the sniper rifle she was carrying would make a very decisive argument.

None of which mattered in the end, because at that exact moment Corporal Jenkins leapt out from cover and opened fire.

"Goddammit Jenkins!" she shouted, but her words were drowned out in a rattle of gunfire.

She couldn't see what Jenkins was firing at - he was too far ahead of her and too exposed for her to get a shot - but whatever it or rather they were, their weapons fired with a soft electronic chirp and such a fast rate that the Corporal took almost three dozen hits before Shepard could even take a step forward. His armor peeled back around his chest and stomach and the corporal tumbled backwards as if he'd been kicked in the chest by a racehorse.

Shepard dove for cover as bright blue plasma bolts zipped past her. Alenko, on the other hand, planted his feet in the ground and raised his hand to their attackers like a man addressing an unruly crowd. Shimmering blue light danced across his palm, and then a concave shell of incandescence filled the air in front of him, like a giant curved wall of faint light. The incoming fire deflected on sharp angles up and away from Alenko as it passed through the barrier, leaving hazy tracers along their path like light rays bent by a lens. Every strike of the barrier sapped some energy from it; the barrier grew imperceptibly smaller as Lieutenant Alenko struggled to replenish it from the energy of his own metabolism.

Shepard wasn't about to let him burn himself out for no reason. She came to her feet, pointed her right arm at her target, and fired the EMP. The first drone flickered in a flash of light and then toppled over to the ground, disabled. The other two next to it adjusted their positions, the air sparkling around them as their kinetic barriers failed. Shepard raised her sniper rifle and sighted on the first one, taking just a moment to learn it's shape.

The drone was hovering ten meters in the air, bobbing like a balloon on a breezy day. It was roughly disk shaped, with a flat surface on the nearest edge that probably contained sensors. A small turreted weapon was slung beneath it, tracking at them, spitting blue bolts of ionized plasma in an almost constant torrent. She lined up her shot at the optics plate of the drone and squeezed the trigger; the rifle barked like a thunderbolt, and the drone exploded.

Alenko's barrier dropped, and in that moment a soft blue glow enclosed the second drone. It hovered motionless for half a second, then slammed straight down into the ground with such force that Shepard could feel the concussion from forty meters away. Ahead of her, Lieutenant Alenko let out a deep sigh as he tried to catch his breath. Human biotics could manipulate mass effect fields by sheer force of will, but even with amplifiers sewn into their brains and nervous systems, doing so took a massive toll on their bodies.

Corporal Leroy Jenkins lay in a pool of blood up the slope, not far from where the last drone had been slammed hard into the ground. Six wide clean holes had been punched straight through his body.

Alenko knelt down next to him, paused for a moment. He scooped up his assault rifle and the two grenades from his belt, then reached up and gently closed the dead man's eyes through his visor. "Shields never triggered, Ma'am," he said, kneeling next to him, "Never stood a chance."

Shepard stiffened. "We'll see that he receives a proper burial once the mission is completed. But I need you to stay focussed, Lieutenant."

"Aye, Commander..."

"For starters, we better figure out what happened to his shields. I doubt it was a malfunction in his suit."

"With Jenkins, Ma'am? It's certainly possible."

"True, but..." Shepard turned her attention to the two drones, one smashed to bits on the ground nearby, the other lying mostly intact but disabled up the slope. She picked up the disabled one and turned it over in her hands. It was heavy - heavier than anything she would have expected to be flight capable - and when she turned it over it made a sloshing, churning sound as if it was partially filled with fluid. She looked at the small weapon slung underneath it, and frowned. "Well there's your problem. They're not using mass accelerators."

Alenko paused next to her, looking worried. "What are they shooting at us? Lasers?"

"Something like that. Which means our sensors never detect incoming fire fast enough to raise the shields." Shepard held it up for him, turned it in her hands, "Any ideas, Lieutenant?""

Alenko thought for a moment, "Well my biotic barrier deflected it well enough, so it's not a laser. Probably some kind of high-energy particle beam?"

"That makes sense." Shepard smiled, and then opened her omni-tool. The glowing orange holographic gauntlet appeared around her arm and fist and she began to adjust the settings on her hardsuit's defense suite. She patched into Jenkin's suit and loaded data from its battle damage logs, had her computer analyze the burn profile, and then programmed her hardsuit's threat detection system to scan for energy emissions with the same pattern. "If those particles move slower than laser beams, this should still work."

Alenko nodded and started to adjust his own settings. "That's a good idea, but won't this make our shields less effective in close combat?."

"Until we know who and what we're actually fighting, I don't plan on getting into close combat."

They both moved on, reaching the top of the slope and passing the point the three drones had been circling. Three badly mangled human corpses were lying there, all three in civilian dress, and all three bearing the same deep penetrating wounds as Jenkins. One of them was carrying a Mattock assault rifle, the other two carried Carnifex hand cannons. Mercenaries, probably, Shepard thought. Or maybe crew members of a civilian ship. They all had the same symbol sewn into their clothing: an elongated hexagon with the bottom corner open...

"Got some burned out buildings here," Nihlus said on their channel, "Lot of bodies."

It was interesting that they still had radio contact. Shepard realized that the jamming must not have been frequency specific... or, more than that, it might not have even been jamming at all. She set her transmitter to an NBC filter mode and keyed her mic, "Radio traffic is so heavy it's interfering with our scanners."

"I noticed that too. I'm not sure what's causing it. Maybe that ship in the distance?"

Shepard paused, "What ship?"

"The one we saw from the recording, or so I assume. From this distance, I would guess it is at least two kilometers long. I don't recognize the design..."

"Contact!" Alenko shouted, and fired off his sidearm. Two more of those strange combat drones were hovering up ahead of them, pulsing away with their particle cannons. There was no time to get into cover - Shepard began to think that was the entire point of these things - and the bright orange kinetic barrier panels flashed into existence around her armor just in time to block a half dozen energy pulses raining down on her. Shepard dove for cover, shield panels flickering like a ghostly second layer of armor all around her, and sighed with satisfaction as her shields chose only this exact moment to fail.

Alenko fired off a few more rounds, then raised his arm and put up his biotic barrier. Shepard counted to three, then rose from cover, sighted the first drone in her rifle, and fired. The drone exploded with a loud pop, and her rifle's ammunition case popped open and spat its spent casing into the air with a hiss of steam. She popped in a fresh one, sighted on the second drone, and fired again. The drone seemed to be turning to retreat when the round struck it; it died in a small but extremely loud explosion, and pieces of shrapnel tumbled through the forest all around them.

"Enemies everywhere," she muttered, echoing Nihlus before adding, "Ooh rah!"


	5. Chapter 4

**4 - Pilgrimage: You'd Think I Was Used To This!**

Why the hell would anyone attack Constant? It was an absurd proposition. Eden Prime as a whole wasn't all that valuable for a military campaign, but it was a potentially attractive target to slavers, raiders, pirates and gangsters. The homesteaders that lived farthest from the built-up areas and huge arcologies were especially vulnerable, and she'd heard that the occasional extortionists, drug dealers and kidnappers sometimes made trouble for the most remote settlers.

But the whole point of establishing Constant was that it was beyond the reach of that kind of predation. The titular arcology and its nearby satellites were too well defended for slavers, local security forces too well equipped, and the Marine garrison too numerous and too agile to leave room for that sort of lawlessness. So Tali'Zorah had worked out that this couldn't be anything less than a full on military operation, which meant the ship she had seen landing here must have been a warship, one belonging to a new species nobody had ever seen before. The fact that they were making first contact by glassing a human colony meant they were probably aggressive, warlike, and out to make a point. The fact that the colony they had chosen was Eden Prime meant that this was just the beginning of a very long and expansive campaign.

All of which meant that Tali'Zorah was about to become very, very wealthy.

She'd decided to risk the main road from First Landing to constant, although calling it a "road" was probably wishful thinking. It was really just a dirt path through the prairie where thousands of pairs of tires had dug ruts into the surface where nothing would grow anymore. Some day, the human colonists would pave it over with a textured ceramic and then they'd be able to drive heavy trucks here while the sky cars buzzed overhead. Until then, it was the a straight path that lead almost directly to Constant, directly to the alien behemoth that had landed there, directly to the center of battle with a new species that everyone in the galaxy would suddenly want to know more about.

Half an hour ago, with the sound of gunfire and explosions booming overhead, she'd set the quad bike by the side of the road and ducked into the thick forests surrounding Xiong Memorial Spaceport. The huge battleship that had landed earlier was obscured for now behind a huge smoke cloud of its own making, but the morning winds were picking up and soon it would be visible again. She planned to take some high resolution images of the ship as soon as the smoke cleared, but until then she would discretely gather data on the attackers.

She was squatting down by he side of a dry riverbed, tucked in to a depression between two tall boulders where she could stay out of sight and listen from relative safety. She'd set her omni-tool to search mode and was constantly scanning the entire electromagnetic spectrum from microwave all the way through hard x-rays, listening for signals from the aliens. Within minutes, she'd started getting her first anomalies: a stuttering electronic croaking sound that her suit computer hadn't been able to identify yet and kept requesting more information. Twice, she'd heard gunfire nearby, some shouting in a human language, some explosions and screams. Her proximity display told her the fighting had gotten as close as two hundred meters, but when she'd sent her personal defense drone to take a look at the scene, it had arrived to find only bodies and carnage and no sign of the attackers themselves.

It was disheartening, but it was only natural. The only way to get better data on the battle was to get close enough to get shot at herself. And you couldn't sell valuable data if you were dead; the Shadow Broker was many things, but he wasn't a necromancer.

A timer beeped on her heads up display. It was time to check the networks again. She'd done this every quarter hour since coming here, hoping that maybe some one or some thing might try to use the network to share data she could peak at.

First, Tali'Zorah logged in to the local extranet and pulled up the bookmark for Constant's global information network. She waited a few moments for the system to recognize her guest account and give her access.

Once again, it gave her nothing but an error message. Global Network is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later. Global services had been dead for over an hour, so this was nothing new. She opened a new extranet window, connected to the local network for the spaceport itself. The network accepted and showed a rough itinerary of arrivals and departures, but the information was over three hours old and hadn't been updated since the attack. So at least the local extranet still worked, even if anyone who might have updated it was dead or hiding.

Next, she tried a more direct connection to the ExoGeni Research Portal at Aguilar Station. The alien battleship had landed very close to - if not directly on top of - the station, so if the attackers were doing anything to the local data sources, it might give her a back door into their network. It was unlikely, of course, but not totally impossible...

The Research Portal came up after a delay, and a VI generated bulletin flashed across the window: SIEGE CONDITIONS ENACTED. FOLLOW APPROPRIATE PROTOCOLS.

"That's interesting..." she muttered aloud. In human usage, apparently borrowed from the Asari, "siege conditions" were a polite way of describing a situation where an academic institution found itself in the midst of a hostile force that was about to overrun whatever defenders were still alive and trying to stop them. It was a warning to other academics that all of the data and information they had collected was about to be dumped to a secure location so the barbarians couldn't get it or destroy it. It was the kind of message a research team might send out in the final minutes before they were captured and slaughtered...

There'd been rumors floating around for months now that a science team from Constant had found something tremendous at the prothean ruins near the spaceport. No one knew what it was, in fact the existence of the prothean ruins alone was as much a rumor as anything else. If the attackers had gotten wind of those rumors, they might have come looking for prothean technology to steal for their own.

But if that was the case, why wasn't Aguilar Station sending this message before? Why, after over an hour of concentrated violence, were they only now trying to save their data? It didn't make any sense. Unless the attack itself was merely a diversion to keep everyone's attention away from the station, or else drive everyone away. Or maybe the attack was meant to cover up the theft of that secret prothean artifact so the humans wouldn't try to recover it...

She had too many theories and not enough facts, and she wasn't going to get the answers she needed hiding under a rock. Tali'Zorah closed the extranet window, climbed out of her hiding spot and took Chitika vas Bas out of its pocket on her forearm and tossed her straight up into the air.

The drone crackled at the zenith of the throw, and then it "hatched," blooming into a bluish-white halo of a holographic sphere about the size of a person's head. The glowing orb around it served no real purpose except to warn other people and drones in the area; the mass effect field that surrounded the drone generated enough static electricity to paralyze an Elcor and could seriously injure or kill someone with repeated contact. Sometimes, this was a liability and a hazard, and sometimes it was extremely useful. More often than not, though, Chitika was both her flying eyes and ears as well as a useful distraction for anyone who might otherwise see Tali as the bigger threat.

And damn she was fast.

"Ready for orders, Creator Zorah," said Chitika in her little electronic voice. The VIs that drove Quarian drones and starships had all been programmed to recognize Quarians as 'creators' and were hard coded with a set of protocols that made the creator's authority absolute even above other organics. Chitikia wouldn't attack another Quarian unless Tali'Zorah's life depended on it, and then it would never use a lethal response. For other life forms, all bets were off.

"Shut off your warning light," she told Chitika on the remote channel, "and try to get a source of that strange radio signal."

The drone's blue halo disappeared, and now it was just a small dark object hovering in the air ten meters above her head. "Signal analysis is now available."

Tali'Zorah flinched, "Really? You know what it is?"

"Anomaly signal is digital communications using trinary logic. Source, unknown. Purpose, unknown. Content, unknown."

"Trinary logic?" Tali'Zorah's eyes widened, "Who uses Trinary code anymore?"

"Unknown."

"Keep your eyes open, Chitika."

"Yes, Creator Zorah." Chitika started moving, making a slow, silent orbit in a twenty meter radius around her head. She moved on now, keeping low to the ground and moving quietly. She didn't want to get caught in the middle of a firefight, but she needed visual confirmation of the aliens, a chance to scan their anatomy, their weapons, a sampling of their language if possible. This kind of battlefield intelligence would be worth a fortune to the Shadow Broker and it would be worth the cost of a small planet to the Systems Alliance once the Broker made it available...

Twenty minutes later, she came to a tree-shrouded hilltop overlooking the main cargo terminal of Xiong Spaceport. She crouched down to take in the surroundings. Chitika hovered nearby, scanning with its active sensors on the gentlest of settings to avoid giving itself away.

Unlike First Landing, Xiong had been built along the coast of the planet's freshwater ocean. Thirty six different landing pads dotted the coastline with not more than a few hundred meters between them. Blast deflectors built between the pads kept each ship safe from its neighbor in the event of an accident or, worse, a ship with a primitive fusion-based drive system like the Majesty. Each landing pad had its own terminal, with a warehouse and a cargo dock and a launch control center staffed by a mixture of bureaucrats and VIs. Each terminal was connected to its neighbors by cargo tram that cycled through every one of them until it eventually reached Aguilar Station at the far south end of the port.

Tali'Zorah read the human writing on the walls and saw that she was at Terminal Thirty Four, which was the second closest terminal to the military terminal and one of the farthest from Aguilar Station. She saw the signs of battle nearby: bullet holes in the walls and nearby buildings, a few wrecked air cars, a Kodiak shuttle lying upside-down with smoke pouring out of its doors. There was still the sound of gunfire from somewhere deeper in the spaceport, and the occasional flicker of tracers rising into the air from somewhere closer to the launch/landing pads. Most of the fighting was coming from the east end of the port, close to where the main military terminal should be.

If they're still fighting, then there are still bad guys in the area, she reasoned. Time to get a look at the visitors.

With Chitika running point, she was able to move more quickly without worrying about being seen. It took her only a few minutes to run the distance to Terminal 35, and from there to the edge of 36. The sound of gunfire had started to fade, and in her radio she started to pick out more familiar sounds. Locator pulses, binary data... finally, even voices.

"They're falling back, El Tee!" someone shouted.

Another voice answered, "This is our chance! Send the mechs forward and put the pressure on! Heavies, covering fire! Advance! Advance!"

So the humans were winning. This was a good sign. But Tali'Zorah slowed her pace now, keeping Chitika ahead of her to avoid getting caught in the invader's retreat. They probably wouldn't see her as any particular threat, but just in case...

She emerged from the trees into a grassy field and saw the military terminal ahead of her. A group of about thirty humanoids in military powered armor were moving here, advancing on a smaller group of forms she couldn't quite identify, firing and moving and firing again. The smaller group didn't seem to be retreating at all, just slowly and carefully backing off. They were still firing, a combination of rockets and bright blue tracers sweeping against the defenders. She saw two of the marines cut down where they stood and another blown off his feet where one of the rockets struck his barriers, but the invaders were being mowed down five or six at a time by the withering return fire.

Tali'Zorah decided not to get any closer than this. "I need your eyes, Chitika," she said, and placed a search area on her map.

"At once, Creator Zorah," said the drone, and rushed forward like a bird in flight.

Tali'Zorah connected to the drone's camera and put a video feed on her own display so she could see everything it saw. In the same instant she did this, a deep mechanical rumble shook the world all around her. A warm breeze swept through the prairie grass, making the tall stalks sweep and bend towards the sea. Tali'Zorah instinctively ducked down to make herself less obvious as she looked into the sky at the source of the sound.

It appeared first as a shadow, and then as a shape: long, bulbous, segmented like an insect, and looking utterly threatening and dangerous despite its not having anything she could recognize as a weapon. Her suit's computer calculated its size and mass, analyzed its heat signature and put figures on her heads up display: it was over a hundred meters long, and judging by its waste heat was running on a generator with at least a gigawatt of useful power. It had kinetic barriers active and it was sweeping the ground with some kind of sophisticated LIDAR system as if it was looking for something.

The ship came to a hover over Terminal 36, and a section of the underside of its hull unfolded like a paper sculpture and expanded over the terminal. Small, dense shapes began to tumble out of it, looking like something like cannon balls carved out of bone and flesh. Where the things landed, chaos erupted; gunfire, screams, and more of that electronic stuttering sound like someone trying to playback a corrupted audio file. Dozens of the things tumbled out of the ship in waves, in front of and behind and all around the defending marines like raindrops falling in a forest.

Tali'Zorah refocussed on the video feed and took manual control, flying Chitika through the battlefield like the world's smallest fighter plane. She found what seemed like an inconspicuous corner and got the drone to hover there, watching the battle unfold. She focussed first on the marines, watching them being cut down and torn apart by crossfire that came from everywhere at once. She saw one marine knocked from her feet by a round that punched straight through her barriers and both sides of her helmet, and then she saw one of the things land only a few feet from the still-falling corpse; where the thing struck dirt, it slammed deep into the bedrock like artillery shell and then quickly unfolded itself into a humanoid shape, like a spring-loaded mechanism in a child's toy. The shape was just under two meters tall, with long arms and legs ending in tridactyl hands and feet. If the three-digit limbs weren't a dead giveaway, the heads of the things would have been: a single, curved tube sticking out of the shoulders like a mechanical worm, ending in a single large ultraviolet laser attached to the front that constantly swept and scanned everything in its field of view.

Once, centuries ago, something much like this had been designed to resemble a Quarian's exo-suit. It had been small, compact, portable, and versatile; it had been distinguishable from a real live Quarian only in the clunkiness of its arm and leg joints and the fact that its faceplate was clearly packed full of sensors and cameras. The things that had just been dropped at Terminal 36 were as different from them as a human was different from a Krogan, but there was no mistaking the design lineage.

It was, she was sure, an ironically-named Servant of the People. The old Keelish word could almost be spoken as an expletive. "Geth," said Tali'Zorah, barely believing she was even hearing it coming from her own voice. A rush of panic shot through her like a rifle bullet, and then the euphoria of realization. When she spoke again, there was a smile in her voice. " _Now_ it's getting interesting."


	6. Chapter 5

**5 - Eden Prime: Run!**

She wasn't panicking. Panic had been earlier, when an antipersonnel rocket came out of nowhere and separated Lieutenant Kyber from his legs. Panic had come from the sudden transition from moving quietly through dense foliage to having a dozen synthetics with assault rifles and grenade launchers firing at your head. No, she was well beyond the capacity for panic now; she would have to stop and regroup before she could manage anything even remotely as sophisticated as panic.

Her hardsuit augmented her strength and speed to the point that she could run almost as fast as most wheeled vehicles even in this rough terrain. She made use of every ounce of this power, sprinting through trees and vaulting over low rocks, ducking through wooded thickets and letting her kinetic barriers bend the branches out of her way.

It didn't matter. The drones were getting closer.

She heard their guns behind her, the distant electronic pulse of their particle weapons. She saw blue-white streaks cut the air around her and ducked her head down to try and avoid them. There was something of a clearing ahead, an old ravine or a river bed that was dry now that the summer rains had stopped. There wouldn't be much cover in there, she thought, but at least with fewer obstacles she might be able to give herself more distance...

She felt something strike the shields between her shoulder blades, like a giant fist driving her downwards. A second impact hit her in the back of her knee and knocked her leg out from under her mid stride. She stumbled head first and rolled, spilling right into the riverbed and skidding across the silty bottom like a rock skipping a pond. "Shit shit shit shit..."

The drones were already there, closing in for the kill. Energy pulses sleeted into her shields as they lit up all around her, chipping away at her defenses as she scrambled for safety. She drew her side arm and rolled to her back and began to squeeze the trigger before she really even had a clear target. Most of her shots missed, a few glanced off the drone's metal skin, seeming to do no damage at all. The drones fired back and she both felt and saw sections of her kinetic barriers flickering and failing around her shoulders and chest. Her HUD display glitched, her rifle's ammo count down to 19 rounds.

It's do or die, she told herself. She took a deep breath, summoned up all her concentration, all her training, every ounce of her skill as soldier and a marksman, and raised her assault rifle between her knees; the shields on her legs were still functioning and gave her just enough protection to do what was needed.

She aimed carefully down the optical sight, let the gun track her target, and squeezed the trigger.

Three short bursts of tungsten-coated flechettes shot from her weapon at five times the speed of sound and sliced through the first drone like an invisible chain saw; the device tumbled and then collapsed to the soft peaty soil as a smoldering wreck. The second drone pulled straight up and began to circle; she anticipated this, seeing the others do the same. She followed its ascent until it reached what she guessed would be its highest point, then toggled her weapon and fired her last Carnage grenade from the upper barrel of her rifle.

The little missile looked like a buzzing fireball in flight, a consequence of its guidance thrusters firing like mad to try and bring it to its target. It zipped straight up and then banked over, homed in on the drone, and then blew into a million pieces on contact.

Eight rounds left in her thermal clip. She looked for the third drone. She didn't see it. She could have sworn there were at least six drones back there... then again, she thought she had heard conventional weapons firing in the background, so somebody else might have drawn them away. Best not to find out what happened to them, she thought, and pushed back to her feet to keep moving.

Immediately, she stopped and froze. Opposite the ravine from where the drones had chased her, four humanoid figures were moving towards her. Two of them were carrying a metal cylindrical object the size of a trashcan with thick tripod legs, the others were carrying a human corpse by his shoulders and knees. These figures - synthetics, obviously - were macabre imitations of living beings, with segmented armor plating over their bodies and rail-thin forms lined with bundles of constantly flexing tension cables as if the entire mechanism was operated by strings. They moved with the speed and precision one would only expect from piece of industrial machinery; the first two planted the cylindrical object into the ground, and the other two hoisted the human corpse over the top of it and held him spread-eagled above it by his wrists and ankles.

She noticed at this point two things: first, that the corpse wasn't a corpse, but was actually moving, in fact writhing, wracked by pain and exhaustion and just a bit of delirium. The second was that man they were holding was Youseff bin Sinan Al'Jalani, the stringer from Westerlund News who'd been embedded with them when the attack started. The poor kid had gotten separated from the squad during the ambush. She hadn't dared to believe he was still alive, but if he'd made it this far only to be captured, then maybe the others...

The cylinder beneath him twitched, and then Youseff was lifted into the air, impaled on a razor-sharp point that had suddenly telescoped out of it, straight up through the middle of his stomach. Youseff screamed, thrashed, then screamed some more and seemed to go limp.

And suddenly all four of the synthetics that had impaled the stringer on the giant spike had turned, their flashlight-shaped heads pointed directly at her.

"Oh fuck!" She was running again, and this time it was panic.

A tall moss-covered rock offered her the first real cover she'd seen in what felt like years. She threw herself behind it, ejected her rifle's nearly-spent thermal clip and snapped a new one - her last one - into place.

They were coming. She could her their clicking/stuttering synthetic voices in her radio, getting louder the closer they came. She took a deep breath, considering her chances. Four against one, she thought, No grenades, no backup, no shields... I'm so fucked... I'm so fucked... I'm so... With a flick of her wrist she activated her omni tool and told her neural implants to fire up her already-throbbing adrenal glands. A rush of adrenaline and a dash of mood stabilizer flooded her veins and suddenly the fog of indecision and despair in her mind gave way to a cold, practiced calm.

That's better, she thought, and considered her chances fresh.

At last glance there were four of them. Two of the dark grey types with the standard rifles. The other two were the white ones with those crazy sniper rifles. If I focus on the darker ones, I'll get pegged by the snipers. So get those ones first... she hit her omni-tool again and selected her suit's emergency reserve battery and dumped the last of its power into her kinetic barriers. The grey ones would have a clear line of fire, but not before she got rid of at least one of the snipers. With those two gone she might have a fighting chance to get some distance from the other two. Here goes nothing...

She took a deep breath, rolled out of cover, sighted on the first white synthetic and fired. Tungsten rounds screamed out of her rifle and tore into the thing's metallic body, knocking it off its feet and sending it tumbling backwards. One down... She sighted on the second one, but didn't even manage to squeeze the trigger before its flashlight-shaped head jumped off its mechanical shoulders in a small but loud burst of shrapnel. The decapitated synthetic flipped completely over as it fell to the ground; telltale handiwork of a marksman rifle using high explosive rounds.

Someone else? was all she managed to think, just seconds before two marines in dark grey combat armor jogged to a stop next to her. One was man was carrying only a side arm, but she could already see the incandescent glow around his fist as the windup for a biotic push. The other - a woman with the Mantis sniper rifle - had an N7 logo on her chestplate. Special forces. Holy shit...

The biotic extended his arm like an open-hand punch, one of the synthetics flew backwards like a chicken in a hurricane, tumbling as it went, finally slamming into a fallen log twenty meters behind it with a sound not totally unlike a car crash. The other synthetic opened fire in a long burst at the sniper; the sniper remained perfectly still, seeming to ignore plasma bolts bouncing off the shields around her shoulders and helmet. She calmly lined up her shot, aimed through the scope, and fired. The synthetic's chest exploded, and what was left of it tumbled to the ground in a heap.

She felt cold and then she felt hot. Then she felt her knees shaking beneath her and realized that the adrenaline rush she'd forced out of herself had finally worn off. This was her body feeling the effects of it; "Soldier Shakes," the Lieutenant used to call it.

The Lieutenant... the Lieutenant was dead, and she'd been running for her life so long she even sure where his body was.

The biotic marine and the N7 straightened up and moved out of the open. The N7 pulled a leaver on the side of her rifle, popped the thermal clip out in a volcanic eruption of steam and snapped a new one into place. The biotic dropped gently to a knee and pulled from his field kit a plastic bottle of something milky and thick that she guessed was probably a glucose solution. They must have fought their way all the way here...

"That's a new one," said the N7, taking something out of her kit. A disk-shaped metal object the size of a tea saucer; she took her side arm off her belt, clipped it to a slot on the front of the disk, and threw it like a frisbee. The disk bounced along the ground like a pebble skipping over water until it skidded to a stop. Then it flipped over on its own and jumped straight up into the air, balancing on a small built-in thruster like a hummingbird. It began to turn slowly, jinking to one side and the next, changing angles and looked for targets. The metallic clamp on the front of it moved the pistol like a gun turret, scanning the terrain. After a few moments it fired at something none of them could see, and a distant electronic croaking sound announced the final demise of the synthetic that had been thrown against the tree.

"That's four down," said the N7. Then she seemed to notice, as if for the first time, that they weren't alone here, and her eyes fixed directly on the still-trembling soldier in front of her. "You okay?"

She nodded, gasping for breath without even realizing it, "Thanks for your help. I didn't think I was gonna make it..."

"Any time," said the N7, "I'm Lieutenant Commander Shepard, SSV Normandy."

"Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams of the Two Twelve."

"Are you wounded, Williams?" Shepard asked.

"A few scrapes and burns, Ma'am. Nothing serious. The others weren't so lucky."

"I see..." Shepard gestured for the biotic to move slightly past her - covering the ground further up the ravine in case more enemies appeared - and then stepped closer, "What's the situation, Williams?"

"Oh man..." She wasn't even sure where to start, so she walked herself back to what she imagined might have been the beginning. "We were patrolling the perimeter when the attack hit. We tried to call it in, but they've been jamming our communications. Youseff over there might have gotten an upload to the extranet before they caught him. I've been fighting for my life ever since!"

"Any idea what kind of enemy we're facing?"

Williams nodded, "I'm not sure, but I think they're Geth."

"Geth?" The N7's eyebrows knitted. It wasn't disbelief, just mild surprise.

"The Geth haven't been seen outside the Veil in nearly two hundred years," said the biotic, "Why are they here now?"

"They must have come for the beacon," Williams said, "The dig site is close. Just over that rise," she pointed to the edge of the ravine and a line of low hills just above it, "It might still be there. Would explain why there are so many of those damn things hanging around."

Shepard looked at the rise, then at the synthetic bodies in the ravine, and then, finally, back at Williams. "Alright, you're with us. We could use your help, Williams."

"Yes, ma'am! Time for some payback!"

The biotic opened his field pack and handed her a pack of thermal clips and three more carnage grenades. Shepard, meanwhile, closed her eyes for a moment and seemed to stand absolutely still. Williams heard a buzzing sound above, and the disk-shaped drone she'd thrown before started moving towards the rise in the direction of the dig site. "Are you controlling that thing?"

"Mostly," said Shepard, "Why? Are the Geth using logic bombs on our drones?"

"No Ma'am. I mean, maybe, Ma'am. I just meant I didn't know any humans had telepresence abilities. I thought you had to be a Salarian to do that."

"So did the Salarians," Shepard said, in a tone of voice that was almost humorless enough to be harsh. "Let's move out."


	7. Chapter 6

**6 - Pilgrimage: Didn't know there were turians here**

From her vantage point in the parking area, she'd been able to watch them from perfect concealment through Chitika's remote connection, and what she had seen so far was enough to write an encyclopedia. She'd learned more about the Geth in the last half hour than she had in the last ten years of schooling and self study, and some of what she'd learned, no one else in the galaxy even knew yet.

It was hard to categorize them on the fly, but just from eyeballing it she'd counted at least five different types of Geth troopers. They came in various sizes, ranging from the size of small animals to hulking titans of absurd dimensions. The largest of them stood almost twelve feet tall and carried a weapon that looked like it would have been happier mounted on the wing of a gunship, while the smallest weren't much larger than pyjaks and carried no visible weapons to speak of. She'd taken detailed scans of what she'd started calling the Troopers, as these were by far the most numerous. Some of them were armed with anti-tank rocket launchers, others carried a weapon that fired pulses of focussed plasma at high velocities. Whatever they were armed with, they invariably moved in groups of twelve; if one of the twelve was killed, another Trooper would shift to come and join them, and if a group of them had less than twelve members, they held their ground and didn't move anywhere until someone joined their ranks. But it has to be more complicated than that, she thought as she reflected on it. It seemed like too much of an exploitable weakness to her.

But then, maybe it wasn't? There were the other units to consider. The ones she called Snipers also moved with the trooper groups, but their numbers seemed to be more or less random. Same again for the bigger ones, almost ten feet tall, that carried heavy weapons and rocket launchers she'd started calling Destroyers. The small monkey-like things she'd seen moving around with the others seemed to be some kind of spotter or surveillance platform; they jumped from wall to wall, scurried over and around and through the battlefield, swinging their flashlight heads every which way. There were also the two very rare types she'd only ever seen a single example of; one of them was the humongous Geth form packed with communications gear that she'd immediately dubbed the Primarch, and the other was a smaller, trooper-sized unit that that had been using some kind of optical camouflage and so had almost been overlooked by her little survey.

Each one she spotted, she logged in her hardsuit computer with observations. Height, weight, thermal signature, estimated power output. She'd managed to get a spectral analysis from one of the dead ones that might help someone figure out what their armor was made of, and when the whole group of them cleared the area she'd try to get physical samples of whatever the milky white fluid was they leaked when they were shot. For now, she was like a field biologist, studying a new ecosystem from safety as they gathered around the watering hole that was terminal thirty six.

They weren't staying here, though. The troopers had rearranged themselves in three groups of twelve and were moving towards the cargo tram on the other side of the terminal. Five stragglers remained behind with their monkey-like Stalkers scurrying randomly around the perimeter. Once again, she observed that while the heavier and more exotic units were leaving, the troopers wouldn't move anywhere unless they had a full company of twelve, but would otherwise hold their ground until either they were properly reinforced or until something came along and killed them...

She didn't want to risk physically boarding the cargo tram, so she sent Chitika to follow the Geth and gave the AI its orders. "Fifty meter shadow of the Primarch," she said on the suit's connection, "Observe all units it interacts with."

"Remote connection may not be possible due to Geth jamming technology, Creator Zorah."

"I know. Just try not to get caught until I can recover you."

"Understood, Creator Zorah. Alert. Unidentified life form is entering the area..."

Tali'Zorah barely heard what Chitika said after that, because the signal was drowned out by the rattle of automatic gunfire. She watched through Chitika's feed as four of the remaining Geth troopers were hit by short, focussed bursts and fell to the grass spilling fluid from their innards. A concussion grenade slammed into the fifth one, blowing it to pieces as it turned to engage. Tali'Zorah ordered Chitika to get out of the line of fire before she realized the shooting had already stopped; somebody had taken out all five of those Geth troopers almost in a single action, and as she watched, the three stalkers running around the perimeter were being picked off one by one.

Picked off by whom, she was suddenly very curious to know.

She had Chitika rise higher above the terminal and scan down from above. Still running silent, it would be almost completely invisible to anyone who didn't know exactly where to look. She traced the source of the gunfire right back to its source, and found there a fast-moving, predatory-looking figure vaulting over fallen Geth budies carrying a Phaeston assault rifle in one arm and a Salarian grenade pistol on his thigh.

Tali'Zorah felt her heart start to spin. The Turian moved with an air of military confidence that would have been impressive all on its own even if he wasn't ridiculously attractive. She noted, not for the first time, that there was something about Turians that appealed to Quarians on a deeply primal level, which was probably why cross-species parings with Turians were even more common than with Asari.

Her curiosity - and her hormones - kept her attention locked on this Turian as he moved towards the terminal and she almost forgot to have Chitika take a biometric scan to identify him later. He certainly moved like a tough customer, and if she played her cards right she might get some one-on-one time with him after this was all over...

The Turian vaulted up the stairs to the terminal's main entrance, leading with his rifle and watching for threats. Then he stopped and lowered his rifle as a look of surprise came over his face. Chitika's audio pickup caught his words and Tali'Zorah heard them clearly. "Saren?"

The Turian's surprise only mirrored her own when the drone's feed locked on a second Turian standing in front of the entrance. Tali'Zorah hadn't noticed him before, and Chitika told her that he'd emerged from the terminal only moments earlier after the shots that destroyed the other troopers. Which meant this second Turian had been right there among the Geth this entire time, right up until this exact moment.

The second Turian turned slowly, noticing the other for the first time. Unlike the handsome one, his expression was entirely unreadable. "Nihlus," he said, familiarity in his voice.

Tali'Zorah had Chitika take a low-energy biometric scan of the second one, and focussed all of her attention on him. Where the first Turian had almost supermodel good looks, the other almost made her cringe. The exoskeletal structure of his skull, face, shoulders and neck were all slightly deformed, as if something had crushed him and then glued him back together based on only a rough sketch of what a Turian was supposed to look like. For a moment she wondered if he was even really a Turian and not just a macabre imitation of one - some fiendish Geth construct, perhaps? - but the biometric data revealed that, genetically, he was exactly what he appeared to be, deformities notwithstanding.

Tali'Zorah watched the handsome one relax, collapsing his rifle back to its storage mode. Her heart skipped a beat and she had Chitika search the area around them for Geth activity. The Geth were still on the cargo tram, exactly where they had moved just before he arrived. They were still now, motionless.

Waiting.

Waiting for orders.

"Oh Keelah..."

The first Turian - Nihlus - looked anxious, despite Saren's casual manner. It was plain to see he wasn't sure why the other Turian wasn't more alert than he was with five fresh kills just a few meters from his feet. "This isn't your mission, Saren," Nihlus said, "What are you doing here?"

Saren reached up, patted Nihlus on the shoulder reassuringly as he walked past, "The Council thought you could use some help on this one."

Nihlus nodded slowly, almost full agreement. "My ship must have called for backup. Can't blame them under the circumstances."

"So they did," Saren grunted, "Especially with this..." he gestured with his hand, indicating the gigantic starship resting nearby, glowing with fierce red static around its flanks as if its internal power was only barely contained.

Tali'Zorah took it as a reminder that there was one thing more important than the Geth she still needed data on. She assumed that the Geth warship would stick around long enough for her to scan it in detail - they were, after all, still rampaging all over the colony - but with this Turian apparently calling the shots, she wasn't sure what to expect anymore.

Nihlus looked up at that shape, the feeling of dread it inspired growing by the second. "I knew the Beacon wasn't as secret as we would have preferred, but I wasn't expecting to find the Geth here."

Saren nodded, "Have you had any luck determining their real objective?"

Nihlus stirred at this, "As opposed to what? You think they did all of this just to capture the Beacon?"

"That would seem to be the obvious conclusion. The data stored in that beacon could be invaluable to them, especially if they're attempting to expand beyond the Veil."

"But the Beacon itself is worthless to them. It can only be accessed by a biotic, and it can't communicate with synthetics. They could steal it, but they could never use it."

"Entirely true, Nihlus. But the Geth may not know that."

"Valid point." Nihlus looked up at the enormous shape towering over them again. His mandibles clicked in an expression of dread. "The situation's bad. I don't think we have a choice. We'll have to try and get a signal out and call for reinforcements."

"Agreed," Saren said, turning behind him.

Chitika caught a movement in Saren's right hand, and Tali'Zorah's blood slowed to a trickle. Nihlus was still preoccupied with the Geth warship and didn't notice the M77 paladin unfolding into Saren's hand.

"I the mean time, we've got to get control of that beacon. We'll have the human squad meet us here and we'll advance on the beacon together." Nihlus opened his omni-tool and started programming an encrypted data link.

"Don't worry about the beacon," Saren said, "I have everything under control."

Tali'Zorah watched, breathless and helpless, as Saren raise the weapon and click off the safety with his thumb. Nihlus began to turn his head, a question just on the tip of his tongue at the exact moment Saren pulled the trigger.


	8. Chapter 7

**7 - Eden Prime: Find the Dig Site**

Now that Commander Shepard knew what to look/listen for, the Mako's sensor array gave her exactly the picture of the surrounding area she had been hoping for int he first place. the Geth signals gave away their locations like signal flares and the Mako's threat detection suite could pick them out of ground clutter from almost half a kilometer away.

And there were plenty of them to go around. Most were concentrated around a small patch of built-up rocky terrain a few hundred meters from where she'd found Chief Williams. She'd wondered, briefly, what that concentration of Geth troopers might have meant, what significance it might have had. But Chief Williams had seen the same data on the turret's her fire control screen and frowned, "That's where they were taking the civilians from New Berwyn. I'd wondered what they were doing with prisoners..." The look in her eye finished the sentence for her. The tripod machine with the telescoping spike...

Shepard had taken the operator's seat for this trip and let Lieutenant Alenko take the driver seat. With her eyes still on the GPS map and the threat sensor, she decided to change the subject. "What else do you know about the Geth?" she asked.

"Just what I remember from my history class back in school. They're Synthetics... artificial life forms with limited AI programming, created by the Quarians back in the eighteenth century. They were supposed to be a source of cheap labor, but they ended up turning on the Quarians. Chased them off their home world and drove them into exile."

"So wouldn't they normally be focussed on Quarian targets? The Migrant Fleets or any of their outposts?"

"Normally? No. After the uprising, they just kind of disappeared behind the Perseus Veil. Nobody's seen or heard from them ever since."

Shepard knew most of this, of course, but colonials tended to have more up-to-date education than those living closer to Earth. And Williams seemed confident enough in the Geth's lack of contact until now that she accepted it as fact. "So what about this beacon?" she asked, changing the subject again, "What do you know about it?"

Williams nodded, "They were doing some digging here to extend the monorail to the new landing pads up north. A few weeks ago the excavators unearthed some Prothean ruins, and that's when they found the beacon. Suddenly every scientific expert in the colony was interested. That's when they brought in the Two Twelve to secure the site. I don't know much about the beacon itself, but I heard one of the researchers say it could be the biggest scientific discovery of the century."

Well, they certainly weren't wrong about that. They also, obviously, weren't the only ones who thought so. "What happened to the researchers at the dig site?"

"I don't know. They setup camp near the beacon. The Two Thirty Two was with them... maybe their unit fared better than mine?"

Judging by the huge cluster of Geth contacts gathered in the ravine - falling behind them now as they got closer to the dig site - Shepard doubted this. Then again, the relative lack of hostile contacts ahead might have been reason for optimism.

"What happened leading up to the attack?" Lieutenant Alenko asked, "If you don't mind me asking."

Williams answered, "We were sent out a couple of nights ago from Aguilar Station to secure the area. Seemed like a routine patrol... until the Geth hit us. We never knew they were coming."

"I'm curious how the Geth even knew there was a beacon here," Alenko said, "Not a lot of people did. Even we weren't told about it until just before we entered orbit."

The Mako came around a clearing, and Chief Williams slewed the Mako's main gun around to look ahead. The optics caught sight of two large, stony-looking towers sticking straight up out of the ground above the treeline. Beneath what looked to be thousands of years of grime and sediment, the metallic surface underneath had a kind of refractive, mother-of-pearl effect that only got more pronounced as the IFV came closer.

So, too, did the tall Geth spikes rising high above the battlefield like flagpoles, along with the bodies impaled around their tips. The gun sight saw a dozen of them between here and the Prothean structure; most of them had turned pale, their blood and fluids draining from the wound, a few were even starting to turn black and grey in what seemed to be advanced stages of decomposition.

"Impaling victims instead of just shooting them," Williams grumbled, "There must be some reason behind it."

"Classic psychological warfare," Alenko said, "Using terror as a weapon."

They were almost close enough now that the ground beneath those stony, pearlescent towers was visible. Shadowy figures moved slowly and gracefully among them, and the Mako's threat board lit up with eight new Geth signal sources in that same direction. Eight signal sources, five humanoid silhouettes with a glowing aperture at the front of their flashlight heads. She couldn't see the other three, but there was plenty of cover to keep them out of sight.

"You good with those drones, Ma'am?" Williams asked.

"Better than most. Why? Don't like our odds?"

"Those Geth troopers are tough, Commander," the tension in her voice was growing worse the closer they got. Three hundred meters now and still closing, "Probably using networked intelligence. They move together like a single organism. Hard to fight, especially when they've got numbers advantage..."

"You know," Alenko pulled the throttle back, slowing their approach, "That gun does work. It's not just for show."

"Yeah, but would anti-tank rounds even work against synthetic troops?"

Shepard suppressed a laugh, "Pull up the inventory program and select thermobaric shells."

"Oh..." Williams did exactly this, and then chirped with delight. On the old M29 Grisly, the selection of ammunition had to be done in a hangar facility or on a ship, before the craft even sortied. The M35's main gun had an adaptive magazine, a smaller version of the main gun on Alliance battleships; it could fire any type of munition you wanted, provided you had enough omni-gel to back it up.

Williams selected a fuel-air explosive shell, then looked at the gunsight screen and zoomed in as far as she could. The five Geth troopers began to take positions near the edge of the excavation, rifles and rocket launchers in hand. They had good cover and good use of the terrain, and it would be hard to dig them out without taking heavy losses. The rocket troopers were already painting the Mako with targeting lasers. Williams aimed for a little patch of ground just behind them, and squeezed the trigger.

An explosion tore the muddy ridge to pieces, and three Geth troopers flew into the air as if they'd been launched out of a giant catapult, tumbling end over end. Two other trooper stumbled away from the carnage, unphased but seemingly disoriented as if they couldn't remember what they were supposed to be doing. Williams centered the gunsight on them and sprayed a burst from the cannon's coaxial gun; a spray of 20mm shells tore the survivors apart.

Four more Geth streamed out of the ruins and fired. Plasma bolts and two anti-tank rockets sleeted through the air and pounded the Mako's kinetic barriers. Shepard saw a warning on her screen as the tank's powerplant doubled its temperature load. Then she smiled with satisfaction as another 105mm cannon round hit one of the Geth troopers center of mass and the explosion sent the others flying through the air like leaves in a tornado.

"Cleared," Williams said.

Shepard confirmed this on her screen: no more Geth signals from the immediate area, although the cluster from further back behind them had started moving their way. They had some time, at least, but not an infinite amount.

Alenko poured on the speed and the Mako bounced to a stop next to the stony towers. Williams swung the hatch open and climbed out first and jogged across the soft soil towards the stone circle at the base of the towers. Once, millennia ago, this circle had been the center of a square or a courtyard between several important Prothean buildings, possibly centers of government or military command centers. Now, it was just an empty disk with tall broken walls around it, and circular depression in the center where something massive should have been but somehow wasn't.

"This is the dig site! The beacon was right here! It must have been moved!"

Commander Shepard came out behind her, tossing her combat drone high up into the air to give her a bird's eye view. The large group of Geth troopers - maybe thirty strong, maybe more - were already moving towards them, half a kilometer away. They didn't have much time...

Lieutenant Alenko asked, "By who? Our side or the Geth?"

"Hard to say," Shrugged Williams, "Maybe we'll know more after we check out the research camp?"

Shepard frowned, "You think anyone got out of here alive?"

"If they were lucky. Maybe hiding up in the camp too. It's just on the other side of that ridge, about a kilometer east."

"Alright, saddle up." Shepard started back to the Mako and vaulted into it, Alenko and Williams entering after her. Reverse order from which they'd exited: Operator, Driver, Gunner. If they'd taken a full squad with them the other three members of the team would have exited before the gunner and re-entered afterwards.

Shepard set the next navpoint on the GPS map and Lieutenant Alenko started to move the vehicle just as the first plasma bolts from the trailing Geth troopers began to pelt their rear shields. Williams swung the gun around and fired; a geyser of smoke and crushed Earth flew high into the air and two Geth troopers tumbled away, burning.

"Shepard to Nihlus," the Commander said on their shared channel, "We've reached the dig site, but the beacon isn't here. We're proceeding to the research camp to the east. What's your position?"

Silence answered her. Not static, not interference. Just silence.

"Shepard to Nihlus. Do you read?"

The silence that followed gave her more information than anything he could have told her. He was unable to respond or he was unwilling to respond. Either way he was compromised, which meant their problems were only just beginning.

Williams fired off one last shot from the main gun before the Mako went over the top of the ridge and started on the way down again. The Geth signals on the threat display didn't draw any closer; they were probably moving to secure the dig site first and shore up their defenses there before they tried to pursue a fast-moving heavily armed vehicle that could easily run circles around them and pound them with a big cannon. It was a logical decision, she thought, though she couldn't begin to imagine what sort of logic a group of sentient machines might be following.

They were three hundred meters from the research camp when Shepard saw the smoke. A big, thick column of it rising into the air like a funeral pyre. As they came closer, they saw the fire was coming from a pile of crushed and smoldering debris that had once been a tripple-level stack of prefab shelters bolted together. Three wheeled survey vehicles and a pair of air cars lay similarly demolished not far away, smashed to bits as if by a single hammer blow from on high. Visibility was poor, and there was no room for the Mako to drive through the center of the camp with all the debris scattered around.

Alenko stopped the vehicle and they unloaded in order. Williams took point and Alenko moved to the right, ready to use his biotics to shield the entire squad if need be. Even Shepard knew it without having to be told, and Alenko gave voice to what all three of them instinctively sensed. "This is a good place for an ambush."

"Agreed," said Shepard, "Keep you guard up."

Among the scattered debris, more of those huge telescopic towers stood in the very center of the camp. At least a dozen of them, each with a body impaled on its tips. The bodies were grey, shriveled, seemingly brittle from exposure; aside from the fact that they were wearing Alliance tactical armor, Shepard would have mistaken them for thousand-year-old mummified bodies.

"Jesus," Williams breathed, going still, "I know those armors... that's the two thirty two!"

"All of them?" Shepard asked, "The whole squad?"

"More than half. I don't..." She paused, raised her weapon towards one of the spikes. Shepard looked up and saw what had caught her attention, and saw something she immediately knew she would never be able to un-see.

One of the bodies was moving.

No, not just one. Two, then three. In moments all of them were moving, writhing around on the spikes, squirming as if in pain. One of them let out a deep, painful gasp as if he'd been holding his breath for nearly an hour... but even that seemed somehow wrong, lifeless.

Something else was happening too. Their emaciated and mangled bodies, grey and rubbery and drained of blood, seemed to be glowing from within, as if someone had woven banks of LEDs into their flesh. They looked less human now than like some macabre imitation of human corpses, shriveled up and atrophied so badly they were barely more than skeletons in wrecked combat armor.

And then the spikes retracted.

The bodies lowered, a few at a time, and the spikes that had impaled them retreated back into their housings. The listless writhing and gasps of not-quite-breath became angry snarls, almost animal-like, and the figures they belonged to came to their feet and turned, as one, on Shepard's squad.

Alenko asked, "Oh God... Are they still alive?"

There was no time to answer. The first of the mutilated soldiers began to move, a shambling, clumsy walk at first, that soon accelerated until he was moving at a dead run, straight towards them. The others followed suit, turning slowly and then picking up speed. Shepard saw them in that hyper-accelerated way of a person with way too much adrenaline in her system: their faces were almost skinless, with no lids to cover the deep glowing pools that had once been eyes and were now something else entirely. No lips, no skin, no hair, no faces. Just machinery woven into flesh, and flesh converted to function. Only a few of them were still wearing their armor, and even then it seemed to be decaying and falling away as they moved.

Shepard raised her rifle and fired once. The former commander of the two thirty two stumbled as a high explosive round blew a fist-sized hole in his chest; he caught his balance, gave an inhuman groan halfway between pain and rage, and then kept on moving.

 _Machine..._ Shepard charged up her EMP and fired an overload into the charging figure. Its armor sparked and flickered, but it didn't slow down. It didn't even seem to notice. "Dammit...!" She opened her omni-tool, primed a radiation pulse, and focussed it on the center of the corpse; power surged from her suit, and the mutilated body erupted into flames and began to collapse.

Alenko pumped his arm forward as if he was pushing open a door, and two of the dead soldiers were blown away as if by a cannon blast. Lieutenant Williams fired a carnage grenade and another one flew apart, spraying grey sinewy dried-out flesh like a leather piniata. Shepard popped her thermal clip from the chamber, reloaded, and sighted on the next one's head. A squeeze of the trigger and a thunderbolt: the creatures' head burst like a balloon. This one stopped moving, and dropped to its knees twitching in a hopefully-permanent death.

 _That works way better..._ she popped her thermal clip and backpedalled, dropped to a knee, and fired again. Another newly-headless creature dropped mid stride.

Three times more: retreat, kneel, fire. Three more of the creatures dropped to her guns. Alenko managed to charge another power field and throw a few more of the creatures out of the camp; from a distance, they heard the soft crack of bodies smashing into trees and rocks and the wet crunch as one of them literally broke in half against a tree trunk.

"What did the Geth _do_ to them?!" Williams asked.

Shepard knelt down next to one of the bodies and examined it closely. It had been a human male, once. A gunnery sergeant, judging by the stripes on his shoulder. Standard armor, alright. Alliance issue, Onyx Series, Mark Five or Six from the look of it. The visible parts of the bodies looked as if they'd been desiccated and embalmed, and all the while something else had grown through them and taken over like vines climbing an abandoned building. It was plain to see that whatever that 'something' was had grown out from the middle of his chest, right about where the spike had impaled him.

"That," Shepard said, standing up, "is a bad sign."

Kaiden nodded in agreement. "This colony's never gonna be quite the same again."

"To put it mildly..."

They moved on, picking through the camp, stepping over piles of debris with their guns at ready. Signs of battle here and there: wrecked Geth troopers, dead soldiers too shot up, apparently, to be converted. Shepard made a note of this too: they couldn't use the dead, only those that were still living or at least not dead yet.

Two smaller prefab shelters, each the size of a standard shipping container, near the edge of the camp stuck out like sore thumbs only because neither of them were on fire or otherwise crushed like the others. Lieutenant Alenko went to check the first one; the door slid open without protest. The shelter was empty, but the Westerlund stringer's video transmission was playing on a loop on a computer monitor on a desk in the corner. So this, Shepard realized, was the server that had dumped his video just before the comm buoys were destroyed.

Chief Williams moved ahead and checked the other shelter, then jumped back startled and announced, "This doors closed. Security lock's engaged."

Which, to Shepard, meant it had been locked from the inside. "Let's fix that, then," she said as her omni tool flared to life around her arm. She pressed the tip of her palm and the circular pad of the omni-tool to the lock and let her mind go to work on the security system."

Simple hardware bypass; she quickly found the circuit pathways that controlled the locking mechanism, and began happily fiddling with them. This was the part of the job she'd always loved, the part that had made joining the Alliance Marines seem worth it. Even joining the N7 program had been more for moments like this than any others: the chance to interface with an uncooperative machine and bend its logic to her will. She was a masochist of technology, a dominatrix of the digital. There was an almost sexual thrill in making machines her bitch.

The prefabs pathetic excuse for a security lock had a simple microprocessor. She bypassed the ground pin, shorted two capacitors that held open a gated transistor, and locked a relay signal into an open position. The door issued the electronic chime that was its digital safe word and unlocked with a loud click. Shepard patted the lock panel as if in sympathy, and the door slid upwards into the top of the prefab.

Someone inside the building gasped and started to cry. A woman, yelling something about surrender, and a man speaking more calmly but far less coherently. Shepard leaned into the opening, rifle in hand. "Hello?" she called, "Anyone order a pizza?"

The attempt at light humor was apparently lost on the occupants. "Humans! Oh thank the maker!"

"Hurry! Close the door before they come back!" The second occupant of the shed was an older, shifty-looking man who kept wringing his hands like a kid who was about to get grounded for littering. Both of them were wearing quilted, insulated lab jackets, the latest Asari style business attire that more and more humans were adopting just because it was comfortable or because it looked more futuristic or maybe both.

Williams and Alenko both stepped in behind her, and Shepard reached over and closed the door. "Don't worry, we'll protect you."

"Thank you," said the woman, a red head with short hair and a look of cultured naïveté in her eyes, "I think we'll be okay now. It looks like everyone's gone."

"Doctor Warren, isn't it?" Chief Williams said after a pause, "You're the one in charge of the excavation, right? Do you know what happened to the beacon?"

The woman nodded, "We moved it here from the dig site this morning. Manuel and I were doing some surface analysis here when the attack came, the Marines held them off long enough for us to hide. They gave their lives to save us."

"No one is saved," the other man, Doctor Manuel apparently, moaned in a voice that seemed equal parts despair and and confusion, "The age of humanity is ended...soon only ruin and corpses will remain."

Shepard focussed on Warren for now. "So the Geth took the beacon with them?"

"I don't think so. We had it loaded onto a truck for transport, and I heard the truck drive off right after the shooting started."

"Me either... what else can you tell us about the attack?"

Warren sighed, shaking her head, "It all happened fast! One second we were gathering up our equipment, the next we were hiding in a shed while the Geth swarmed all over the camp!"

"Agents of the destroyers," Manuel whined, "Bringers of darkness... heralds of our extinction..."

"We could hear the battle outside," Warren went on, "Gunfire. Screams. I thought it would never end. Then everything went quiet. So we just sat here, afraid to move, until you came along."

Doctor Manuel hunched over, sobbing gently. He muttered something Shepard could barely make out, and only when he noticed her watching him did he repeat louder, "There is no battle... there is no war... there is only the harvest!"

Shepard frowned, "Okay. I gotta ask. What the hell is wrong with your assistant?"

Warren looked apologetic. "I have no idea. He seemed fine yesterday. Talking normal. But ever since this morning, he's been..." Warren shook her head, and made a gesture with both hands as if she'd gathered a fistful of dust and then blown it across the room with a breath. The meaning was fairly clear: Doctor Manuel's mind had blown a fuse. "I gave him a sedative a few minutes ago. Should kick in soon."

Shepard nodded, "So that's our next stop... Williams, which way to the spaceport?"

"Straight south from here. The nearest terminal is the military port. I can plot a navpoint on the Mako if that helps."

"It does." Shepard pawed the door mechanism, "Come on, let's go."

"Good luck, Commander," Doctor Warren said as Shepard and team left the shack.


	9. Chapter 8

**8 - Sovereign: Prove Your Worth**

Two Geth Primes greeted Saren at the platform as the cargo tram hummed to a stop in front of them. These two primes together made up the commanding intelligence that coordinated the entire Geth Battalion he had brought with him; like mobile hubs or routers for all the rest, their combined intelligence could be shared among the whole and allowed his troopers to function less like the glorified security mechs and more like the dynamic and lethal soldiers he'd come to respect them for.

There were very few Geth platforms capable of lingusitic communications; these two managed, between them, by splicing together clips of audio from extranet news broadcasts, viral videos, films, poems, songs and even snips from political speeches. It made their speech sound disjointed and random, but Saren had learned to understand them if he listened closely enough. "The... prothean... beacon... has been... secured... at... the... medical station... Ambassador."

Saren grunted as he walked past them, heading up the ramp towards the medivac landing pads that normally would receive ambulances from all over the colony but now contained just debris, discarded storage lockers and several dozen bodies impaled on spikes. "Prepare the beacon for transport to Sovereign," he said.

"We... cannot... the beacon... has become... activated... we believe... it has... detected... Sovereign's... presence... and will... self-destruct... if captured..."

Saren growled, glancing up at the towering bulk of Sovereign standing over them. This close to the ship, it was almost a solid wall of shadow over them, lit from beneath by the fires of the ground and the facilities it had destroyed when it landed. It wouldn't be the first time a prothean device reacted this way; Saren had discovered the hard way that many such artifacts would shut themselves down or even violently self-destruct whenever a sufficiently alien technology moved too close to them. Geth and Elcor technology seemed to trigger their countermeasures the most, but none so reliably as Sovereign itself.

While he was still considering this, a third Prime came stomping down the platform, this one with the decorative blue armor plating and the pattern he recognized as belonging to Matriarch Benezia's escort. The Matriarch was right behind the Prime, her slim form fully concealed by its bulk until they were both down from the stairway and standing on front of him.

Saren hadn't summoned her here, but he had felt the need to speak with her, and therefore she had been summoned. It was one of the many fascinating and sometimes eerie ways that Sovereign made communication so much easier between members of its crew.

"Commander," she said with a slight bow of the head, Asari honorifics seeming slightly out of face. Benezia was over twelve hundred years old and probably set in her ways by now, but h still found her ritualistic approach to everything tiresome.

"Benezia," he said, burying his disdain for now, "Aerial observations reported an anomaly..."

"Yes, Commander. I have confirmation from the Stalker patrol that there is an Alliance special forces unit advancing on Terminal Thirty Six. Our soldiers have engaged, but our resistance is ineffective."

Saren began to pace, the tightness in his gut like a presentiment of death. "Those must be the commando units Nihlus mentioned. He usually works alone, but I've known him to team up with specialists when the mission calls for it."

"As is likely to be the case here. The forces our soldiers have encountered is reported to be small but extremely well armed."

"And our best troops can't even slow them down." He stopped his pacing and folded his arms, considering this. "We still have several platoons available. We'll deploy what we have in the area to buy us more time..."

"Concentrating our forces for our enemies to crush them?" Benezia tilted her head, "That would gain us nothing."

"You have a better idea, Matriarch?"

"I suggest we do the opposite. The enemy is moving with clear intent to recover the beacon. I suggest we withdraw the bulk of our soldiers, leaving only a token force in the nearby towers to divide their attention, and allow the commandos to reach Aguilar Center. We will be able to concentrate our enemies where we can strike them at once."

"And hope that they don't realize they're walking into an ambush? And hope that whatever ship dropped them off - which we still can't locate, by the way - doesn't come in to provide close air support?"

"A conventional attack would be a great risk, Commander. A thanix device with a timed detonator would be ideal."

Saren's eyes flickered. A thought not entirely native to his own mind spilled through his brain and into his mouth, "I agree. See to it. In the mean time, I have business to attend to..."

Benezia watched him as he turned and walked away from her, her mind spinning in too many directions at once to speak at first. Too many of those directions were unnatural, and some of them were utterly compelling despite being wrong.

One of them was the sudden notice of a small, circular object hovering in a corner of the loading dock, silent and still and only noticeable for the fact that it was out of place. It was a drone of some sort, but not one of the Geth's. Judging by its position, someone had placed it there to keep it inconspicuous. Which meant someone out there was watching this conversation, listening in.

Whoever it was would have to be destroyed. No one could know of her purpose, or the mission. No one could know until they were ready to move. Secrecy had to be absolute...

Or did it? What if knowing what they were looking for turned out to be a blessing? What if more people knowing of the mission would help them recruit others to the cause? Benezia seized on that thought and let it fill her with joy... she made it fill her with joy. Because joy and rapture and the almost sexual thrill of Saren's dominance were the only pleasures left to her now, and the only tools she still had left to fight whatever had been placed in her mind...

"How did this happen, Commander?" she asked to Saren's back, using a tone of voice carefully chosen to trigger him, "How did we lose to these humans?"

"Lose?" He caught the tone of contempt on her last word and clamped on to it like a predator on a wounded animal. He whirled around, excitement in his eyes, "We haven't lost, Benezia. This is a major victory! This beacon will bring one step closer to finding the Conduit!"

Benezia swallowed. She wanted to say more... something that would let her... _recruit_... more of the peoples of the galaxy to... _help_ Saren's cause. But the words weren't there, and they wouldn't come. No one else needed to know anything except for the part that they should celebrate most. "And the return of the Reapers?"

"And salvation!" Saren said, and stomped off towards the beacon.

At the bottom of the cargo ramp, finally reaching the landing pad, Saren found the Prothean beacon very much active, pulsing frantically in Sovereign's shadow. The beacon looked like a lightning rod built into a slanted, angular console on a wide circular base. It was pulsing with an incandescent green light that seemed to dance around it like an aurora.

Saren was by no means an expert on Prothean technology, but he knew enough to know that, as natural biotics, they operated almost all of their technology telepathically. Their beacons were designed to be universal, so that any Prothean or any sufficiently powerful biotic from any of their client races could activate the beacon and download its message. There was a simple signal, a simple prompt that would trigger the beacon to activate. The signal was so simple that Matriarch Benezia - who had first discovered it - had actually laughed when she explained it to him in such a simple turn of phrase: "Pull to open."

Saren charged a biotic field and drew the beacon towards himself. The beacon didn't move even an inch, but it _did_ react. The pulsing green glow intensified, and gravity around him shifted. He was lifted four feet into the air as a mass effect field engulfed his body, and his eyes began to twitch as another, more precise and carefully modulated field began to work inside of his skull...


	10. Chapter 9

**9 - Eden Prime: Seriously?**

The main road leading to Terminal 36 ended sharply where a narrow trench full of smoldering rubble had been carved across its path. It looked like some gigantic farmer and run an equally gigantic plow right across the roadway and in the process created enough friction to melt the topsoil into glass.

Lieutenant Alenko didn't slow down before the gap. He gunned the engine, built up speed, and just before the edge of the trench hit a covered switch on his control panel to fire the Mako's landing thrusters. The four bright blue jets roared beneath the vehicle and it jumped ten meters off its wheels without even slowing down. All three of them pressed their backs into their seats and braced themselves; the Mako slammed back to the ground, bounced, but kept on moving undisturbed, as if the twenty meter chasm it had just vaulted had been little more than a speed bump.

"Hey Commander," Williams said, "I've got an IFF tag up ahead. It's pinging 'SR1B.'"

"That's the other Mako," Alenko said, "Nihlus was driving it."

Shepard felt a chill run down her spine. She signaled again on the ground channel, "Shepard to Nihlus. If you can hear me, please respond!"

The silence that answered them was deafening.

Alenko pulled to a stop next to Nihlus' Mako and the three of them climbed out. The hatches were closed, but a glance inside the compartment showed no sign of its Turian driver or anyone else. There was no damage to the vehicle either; it had been parked here and powered down with only its kinetic barriers and automated defense systems active. Shepard saw that Nihlus had parked it just short of a high ridge that the main road had been cut through, so probably he had ditched it to scout ahead on foot rather than drive blind into what might have been a fortified enemy position. Valid tactic for a lone scout with a vehicle and no gunner. But not for a three-man squad with two vehicles and a telepresence linkup...

"Move out on foot," Shepard said, drawing her rifle from the magnetic holster on her back.

Williams and Alenko followed suit, with Alenko taking point. Shepard activated her omnitool as they started to move, linked her neural interface into her Mako's onboard VI and set the system to run on semi-autonomous mode. She did the same with Nihlus' Mako at the same time and had both of them feed video from their turret optics into her personal view. She could see well enough from the turrets... at least, well enough to drive and aim and maybe hit a target if she concentrated hard enough.

Alenko grunted and Williams yelped as the two infantry fighting vehicles began to move without drivers. Shepard offered a reassuring "I got these," and fell into position between them. With a Mako on either side of her squad, she now had the armor, the protection and the firepower to face whatever might be on the other side of the ridge...

Anything, that is, except what she actually saw.

Alenko's voice was as loud and as urgent as a battle-stations klaxon, "What is that?! Jesus Christ!"

Shepard froze in place, transfixed by a rush of anxiety she had never known before. "It's a ship!" she gasped, "Look at the size of that!"

The ship - if that's really what it was - stood taller than the tallest sky scraper she had ever seen, even taller than Eden Prime's biggest arcologies. It had a curved, diamond-shaped hull that tapered at the top and five insect-like landing legs on the bottom that appeared to be standing in a like of fire. Smaller legs, flattened against the back of the hull twitched and unfolded as she watched, and the ship, this massive, monstrous vessel, began to move.

"That's the ship that attacked us," Williams said, "It's the Geth flagship! It must have la-" her words were cut off by a blast of something that million times too powerful to be described as noise. A blast like a foghorn replayed through a billion-watt amplifier, in a tone so deep it might have been inaudible if it wasn't also the loudest thing in the galaxy. Shepard felt her stomach drop to her ankles and the tingling sensation in her chest like her ribcage was trying to claw its way out of her belly button and run away for safety. She felt sick, disoriented, and then she looked up again and saw that the monstrous ship had begun to ascend, trailing thick red smoke beneath it as molten material began to fall away from its landing legs.

It rose effortlessly, more like a child's toy than a million-ton spacecraft, and as it rose up through the cloud layer and punched through, Shepard got an eye for scale as the clouds slowly swallowed its entire bulk. Assuming the clouds hadn't gotten lower since they'd landed, the thing that had just taken off had to have been at least two kilometers long.

She was still watching the ascent by the giant ship when the burst of plasma bolts jittered across her shields. She felt the impact like a punch in the chest, and looked for the source of the shooting more offended than alarmed. The bridge that normally lead to the south parking area had been demolished and was now a deeply canted ramp leading down to a grassy field and a maintenance area. A dozen Geth troopers were firing up at them from the field, and a dozen more were emerging from the spaceport terminal. Shepard noticed the troopers were moving together in a manner almost too synchronous to be natural; it looked like their battle formations were precisely and gracefully choreographed, like a troop of ballroom dancers performing combat maneuvers. She would have admired their coordination if it wasn't so creepy to watch.

Also, if they weren't shooting at her.

A low metallic sound drew their attention to the maintenance area where a dozen tall spikes had begun to retract, the mutilated bodies impaled on their tips twitching as they became active again. The Geth troopers on the upper terrace spread out into firing positions as the red beams of their sniper rifles danced across their chests.

Alenko was already putting up a biotic barrier to screen them and following rounds pelted off the glowing blue boundary before they could hit home. Shepard, meanwhile, linked back to the Makos' VIs, slewed their main guns forward to aim at the center of the upper terrace where the Geth reinforcements were massing. She checked to make sure she had high explosive rounds ready, then fired from each cannon, one after another, alternating. Four times the 155mm shells detonated against the terrace and four times entire clumps of Geth troopers were thrown into the air or blown to pieces by detonations. Williams, meanwhile, fired from behind the cover of Alenko's barrier, calmly picking off Geth troopers a few at a time.

Shepard ordered the Mako's forward, firing off the coaxial guns in long bursts. The transformed corpses were cut down and swept away three or four at a time; they dropped when the 20mm shells tore pieces out of their legs and torsos and stopped them from moving, but they showed no other sign of even knowing they were under fire until the last of them were cut down. The Makos were just cover now, a distraction; even keeping her attention divided, she managed to raise her rifle and sight on her first target. Lined up a headshot. Squeezed the trigger. The flashlight-head exploded and the body crumbled at the knees.

She reloaded. Second target. Aimed, fired. The Geth flipped end over end before it came to rest with a gaping hope in its upper torso and sparks pouring out of its innards. "Hope that hurt," Shepard said, and lined up her next target.

"They're falling back!" Williams shouted. And she was right. The last trooper in Shepard's sighs had been backpedaling while firing; the next one was in a dead run, sprinting towards the trees on the far side of the field, away from the spaceport itself. A low, mechanical howling sound announced the arrival of another ship, and Commander Shepard looked up just in time to see something large, grey and insect-like pass directly overhead in the same direction. It wasn't nearly as large as the ship that had just left, in fact it seemed similar to the Normandy in size and - as it descended - function as well. A Geth frigate, then, or whatever their equivalent is.

 _And they're running towards it, regrouping. Which means..._

"I think they're pulling out," Shepard said, sighting one last trooper as it raced into the treeline. She fired at its back before it could get out of sight; the explosive round tore it in half in a spray of debris and a milky white substance that for any other target she might have assumed was blood. _What is that? Coolant? Hydraulic fluid?_

It had only landed for a few moments, and then the Geth ship lifted off again. Shepard checked her threat detector and noticed for the first time that the sensor was picking up normal signal traffic in the absence of any interference. She also noticed - seemingly coincidentally - a dozen other insect-like forms rising into the sky from elsewhere. One even seemed to be detaching itself from the side of a distant skyscraper, the arcology that had been its host still burning from the inside.

More signals hit her detection system, and she linked to the Mako's sensors to sort them out. There were civilian locators nearby, probably workers hiding from the Geth troopers, or bodies whose locators hadn't shut off. There were connection requests from some civilian services and requests for orders from what must have been an entire platoon of security mechs on standby somewhere. _The Geth must have shut the mechs down when the attack started,_ Shepard realized, _No wonder they got overwhelmed so easily._

They moved forward cautiously, keeping the Makos at pace with them as they went down the slope. The Makos' mass effect generators kept them firmly fixed to the ground beneath them even as the slope passed seventy and then eighty degrees. Field tests on Luna and on Earth had confirmed that an M35 could maintain traction on a solid surface up to an eighty two degree incline; a lighter civilian version of the same vehicle was being called the Gecko, for its ridiculously effective climbing ability.

The IFVs stopped just shot of the maintenance area. A partially frozen Geth trooper lay on its side at the foot of the stairs, crackling noises from within as its frozen components began to thaw, expanding and popping against each other. Shepard climbed the stairs carefully, keeping her rifle in front of her, watching for any survivors or stragglers that might have stayed behind just to be annoying.

Immediately, a proximal IFF code signaled her computer. 'Special Tactics and Recon - Medical Emergency.'

"Commander!" Alenko saw it at the same time Shepard's computer did, "It's Nihlus!"

The Turian Specter was lying on his back, a small pool of blood next to his head, his eyes open and staring lifelessly at the sky. Apart from the blood on the back of his head he didn't seem to be badly injured, and Shepard knew Turian anatomy well enough to know that a head wound to a Turian had to be pretty dan serious before it got fatal...

"Movement!" Williams said, bringing up her rifle, "Over behind those crates!"

Shepard raised her rifle and Alenko put a barrier around all three of them. They all sighted on a figure that had just emerged from cover and then just as quickly frozen in shock at the sight of weapons aimed his way. "Wait! Don't shoot! I'm one of you! I'm human!" A man in beige workman's overalls and a beanie hat was shouting as if he was struggling to maintain bladder control. His arms were up, outstretched, as if he was holding up a sight at a sporting event.

Shepard glowered at him over the sight of her rifle. "Sneaking up on us like that nearly got you killed!"

"I'm... I'm sorry," said the man, keeping his hands up but relaxing a bit, "I was hiding! From those... creatures!"

Shepard lowered her rifle. Williams did the same. Alenko let the barrier down,but kept the power field in his arm charged anyway, just in case.

"My name's Powell," the man went on, "That turian right there... did you say his name is Nihlus?"

Shepard nodded, "Did you see what happened to him?"

"Yeah, I saw. The other Turian, the creepy looking one. He shot him."

"Other Turian?"

"Yeah, that one got here first. He was waiting around for something when this Nihlus guy showed up. He called him Saren. I think they knew each other. So Nihlus relaxed, they got to talken. And soon as your friend let his guard down, Saren killed him. Shot him right in the back of the neck. I'm just lucky he didn't see me behind the crates."

Shepard opened her omni-tool and dumped the last sixty seconds of her hardsuit's audio record to memory, just in case. Then she set her tool to scan Saren's body and its surroundings, documenting the scene for later. Almost immediately, the omni-tool threw up an error message and the the red tripple-triangle of a radiation warning. It only took a moment for her hardsuit's computer to identify the unmistakeable telltales of a polonium round, shattered into dust just above Nihlus' brainstem. If the trauma from the wound hadn't killed him, the radiation from the bullet would have killed the nerves in his brainstem in just a handful of minutes and finished him off for good.

Which was not even the biggest reason polonium rounds were illegal.

Shepard turned back to the man behind the crates, who in the mean time had slowly dropped his arms but was being careful to stand still and keep his hands visible. "We were told the Prothean beacon was brought to the spaceport. What happened to it?"

"It's over at the Aguilar Center. Probably where that Saren guy was headed. He hopped on the cargo tram right after he killed your friend."

"How far is it to Aguilar?".

"Not far, Commander," Williams answered, "About a kilometer or so that way."

Shepard couldn't help but notice that Williams had pointed in the exact same direction where that the giant Geth dreadnought had just departed.

"I knew that beacon was trouble," Powell grumbled, "Everything's gone to hell since we first found it. First that damn mother ship landed on us, and then the Geth..." he took a deep breath and shuddered, "They killed everyone... _everyone_! If I hadn't been behind the crates, I'd be dead too!"

Shepard eyed him, "How come you're the only one who survived here? Why didn't anyone else try to hide behind the crates?"

"Because they... um... they never had the chance to," Powell hung his head, "I was already behind the crates when the shooting started."

Kaiden squinted at him, "Wait, you were hiding behind the crates _before_ the attack?"

"Well, yeah. It's a sixty four hour day, and I do back-to-backs, so I take a nap or something between shifts. I usually sneak off behind the crates where my supervisor can't find me."

Williams gave him a look that was simultaneous amusement and contempt, "You survived because you're _lazy_?"

"Just lucky," Shepard said, "If you hadn't been sleeping on the job, you'd be dead just like the others."

Powell shook his head slowly, "Jesus... I don't really want to think about it."

"Commander," Williams moved closer to her, stepping around Nihlus' body, "The Geth are already pulling out... They probably took the beacon with them."

"It's worth having a look either way..." Shepard took one more scan of the scene around Nihlus' body, then started back down the terrace and the flash-frozen Geth, back towards one of the two waiting Makos.

"Cargo train's probably faster," Alenko said.

" _If_ it still works and nobody's cut the maglev rail."

"True..." Alenko opened the hatch and climbed inside, followed by Shepard and finally Williams.


	11. Chapter 10

**10 - Normandy: Overwatch**

The holographic display told the very welcome story that the tower city of Constant was still intact, its kinetic barriers, though weakened, were still active and the GARDIAN defense batteries along its sides were still functioning. There were tracers of gunfire coming from terraces on the lower floor, firing down at targets down in the meadows and fields around it that, in turn, were firing back up as they tried to gain access to the building. Constant had been reinforced by the Alliance during the Skyllian Blitz, however, and Anderson knew it would take a much bigger military force than that to breach the tower's defenses; for all intents and purposes, the eight-hundred-meter-tall arcology was a modern day fortress.

Pillar of Creation wasn't so lucky. Like Constant, that tower had begun its life as a deep space colonization vessel and had carried sixty five hundred people halfway across the Galaxy to land under its own power just a few kilometers from where Constant eventually joined it. The older vessel hadn't responded as well to the new defensive upgrades; its kinetic barriers weren't as stable as they should have been and its heat diffusion system wasn't robust enough to support its defense systems. This fact had not been lost on the colony's attackers, and so fourteen kilometers from the rock of stability that was Constant tower, Pillar of Creation was burning like a torch.

What drew Anderson's attention to it, however, had been the extra mass the tower had acquired. The holotank in the center of the CIC had highlighted then bright red against the blue projection of the tower. There were eight of them total, each one about a hundred and fifty meters in length, and each one attached to the side of the tower like insects crawling on the side of a tree. They even looked like insects; with their bulbous, segmented bodies, they reminded Anderson of wasps that had folded their wings down against their bodies. "Joker," Anderson said, staring at the holographic image, "Circle around to the east and try to bring us in closer to the Creation."

"I'm working on it, Captain, but remember, the stealth systems haven't been tested in the field yet. If they pick us up on scanners, we won't know about it until they start shooting."

"I'm well aware of that, Flight Lieutenant. Make your maneuvers smartly and maintain low altitude. Also, open a secure line to the Pillar's defense network. Maybe someone over there's still putting up a fight."

"Aye, Captain."

"I'm picking up radiation anomalies all along the tower, Sir," Corporal Draven announced almost without warning, virtually thinking out loud from the ECM console. Her seat on the left side of the cockpit was normally dedicated to tracking other starships and picking apart the nature of their sensors to figure out exactly how to jam them or keep Normandy hidden from them, but in most simulations she'd discovered that the sensitive instruments that helped the ship track its would-be predators were more versatile than anyone expected. "I'm trying to localize them, but I think we're seeing signatures from hostile weapons fire."

"I agree," Anderson said. Unlike Constant, there wasn't a lot of fire coming from the tower. If anyone was left alive in the place and still fighting, they were doing it room to room, door to door. "Any response from their defense network?"

"Nothing yet, Captain, but we might not be close enough to cut through the jamming. Records say the security contractors are from Armax Arsenal, so their equipment should be military grade at least."

 _Then why aren't they responding?_ If there was anyone left alive over there, they should still have access to the tactical defense network, at least enough to tell any approaching ships that they were hiding or otherwise pinned down and unable to help. It had been half a day since the attack began, but Anderson found it hard to believe that six frigates worth of troops - whatever they were - could dispose of five thousand people that quickly without simply demolishing the entire building. "Take a look at those ships or whatever they are attached to the side," he ordered Draven, "Are you picking up any mass effect fields or any propulsive forces?"

"They have barriers up, but no propulsion. I think they're latched on to the load-bearing structures of the tower."

"Their equivalent of landing, then," Anderson said, thinking.

Lieutenant Presley added from across the holotank, "That seems kind of specialized, doesn't it? I mean, who else but human colonists use tower cities like this?"

Anderson shook his head, "It's more common than you think. The Turians call it 'neo-prothean' and the Asari call them 'monastic communities.' In fact, every species in the galaxy builds some version of it."

Presley looked at the diagram more closely, "Is it more common for colonies, though? If it is, that might tell us where these jokers came from."

" _This_ Joker came from Tiptree," Lieutenant Moreau said, "The post-urban fad totally skipped us. In fact, you don't really see that for human settlements outside the Exodus Cluster."

"But these towers were originally _ships_ ," Draven added, "Suppose those ships are actually some kind of boarding craft?"

The intercom went quiet for a moment, and all of them considered this at once. Even Anderson paused, and as he thought about it, it actually made sense. Whatever they were using to attach to the sides of the buildings was at least good enough to keep them locked on through one full gravity of acceleration, which meant that once they were attached it would be difficult to get them off again.

There were theoretical advantages to this technique. Many civilian ships were built with thrust gravity in mind, using the constant acceleration of their engines to keep the crew pinned to transverse bulkheads that also doubled as floors. The parasite craft could overtake a fleeing vessel and attach to it without even needing to disable it, board it, take it over, and then fly it to its next destination without anyone having any idea it had been attacked. These small vessels may not provide a huge threat in and of themselves, but clinging to the hull of larger vessels like parasites...

Anderson's eyes widened as he realized, and he gripped the railing of the command console as he shouted, "Joker, evasive action!"

Joker started to turn the ship, and seconds later the crack of an x-ray laser sliced through the sky, barely missing the hull. Defense batteries and mass accelerators along the side of the Pillar of Creation all roared to life now, firing in Normandy's direction without a real target lock. The stealth systems were keeping them mostly off the enemy scanners, but the connection request to the battle network was harder to ignore. "Draven, shut down the comms and blast white noise! They're keying on our transmitter!"

"Comms secured! Garbage out!" Normandy's communications system was now flooding the airwaves with garbage data. Anything with an antenna within twenty kilometers of the ship would soon be reduced to electronic stupor.

"Hostiles must have taken over the defense systems!" Joker said in a voice almost an octave higher than normal, "My god, if they turn those weapons on the other towers...!"

"They won't," said Presley, leaning against the console where the sudden turn had almost thrown him off his feet, "That would be massive overkill for what they're after."

Anderson nodded in agreement, "It's in the way they're deployed. They're taking and holding ground here. If they'd wanted to _destroy_ this place, they could have easily done that from orbit."

Lieutenant Presley frowned, "So it's an invasion. They're looking to conquer the colony."

"Maybe..." the possibility had crossed Anderson's mind once already, but the timing of the attack suggested other objectives. The most important of these was the fact that many of the arcologies had large public docks designed to berth freighter-sized vessels, which ships like the Normandy could use more than comfortably. If, at the outset of the attack, someone in the colonial government had decided the Prothean beacon needed to be moved some place better defended...

But how could an alien race even know about the beacon? Only a dozen people in the galaxy even knew it was here, and half of them were had arrived on the Normandy. Or maybe - now that he thought about it - that number had already risen too large for secrecy? The construction workers who dug it up in the first place had been told not discuss it over the extranet, but who knew who they'd talked to in person who hadn't been so careful? The scientists had sent word to their division heads, obviously, and maybe to some of their colleagues back home. The local militia, police, a few Alliance detachments on the surface, all would have been informed of the find and acted accordingly.

No, the secret was out. Too many people already knew about the beacon, and it had drawn exactly the kind of attention that Anderson had hoped to avoid. This would not be the stealth mission that anyone was hoping for, nor would it ever really be a secret...

"Captain," Corporal Draven sounded pensive, almost enthralled by her sensor readings, "I have a... I have _something_ on thermal imaging. I thought it was one of the towers, but it's much too big for that."

"It's too big?" Anderson's brow furrowed at that.

"That's what _she_ said," Joker deadpanned.

"Give me thermal and visual."

Draven did, and the thermal image appeared first. Anderson couldn't make out much from this; it looked like a huge dark shadow standing in a pool of bright light. And standing was indeed the word for it, because the shape of the thing clearly indicated a tall, tapering body on top of several multi-jointed legs. The visual image that followed reinforced this perception but didn't add any detail. The thing had at least five large legs and a half dozen smaller ones folded against its belly. It looked like some sort of arthropod, like a crab or a cuttlefish covered in metal armor plating. Except that the computer analysis of the image said that the ground beneath the thing was radiating temperatures upwards of a two thousand kelvins, and that the thing itself was over two kilometers tall.

"Oh my God!"

"Yeah, that would have been my guess," Joker said. "Talitha, is that a twelfth power eezo discharge or are you just happy to see me?"

Draven's response was as immediate as it was dry. "I'd be a lot happier with you if we were flying _away_ from the giant scary monster with the terawatt-sized drive core."

On the visual feed, bright red flashes lit the sky all around the thing as electrical discharges passed from its skin to the air and the ground around it. It flashed outside and in, as if someone had taken a thundercloud and found a way to attach armor plating to it. As they watched it, it began to ascend, leaving behind the pool of molten rock it had been standing in until now. It rose almost straight up with the speed and persistence of an ICBM, parting the clouds as it soared into the heavens, an entourage of smaller Geth ships rising to join it like the heavenly hosts.

"How did we not notice that thing before now?" Anderson asked, "It's not that far from where we dropped Nihlus and Shepard."

"It's standing right in that column of smoke we thought was a mushroom cloud... Oh damn, that sounds _way_ scarier when you say it out loud."

And the imagery was just the half of it. The discharge from its drive core had released as much energy in a few minutes as a tactical nuclear weapon would have released in an instant. And drive core discharges didn't represent the true power of the ship that produced them; they were the electrical waste produced by element zero, a buildup of static electricity that was the natural consequence of manipulating dark energy.

This ship - if that's really what it was, rising skyward out of a tiny little pocket of hell - generated so much power that even its waste energy could flatten a major city. "Draven, I want full imagery and full spectrum analysis for as long as we have contact! Passive sensors only, and be subtle about it. Joker, try to stay with them all the way up to orbit! We need to find out what we're dealing with here."

"Simple shakedown cruise," Joker grumbled, not seeming to care that he was on an open channel. Still, Normandy maneuvered precisely and gracefully under his expert touch, and Anderson almost couldn't bring himself to reprimand the flight lieutenant as he grumbled, "Yep. Totally called it..."


	12. Chapter 11

**11 - Eden Prime: Save the Day**

Without hostile contacts to worry about, the drive was short and direct. They followed a dirt road that ran parallel to the cargo train, not slowing down and not needing to. They saw more insect-like shapes lifting off and departing along the way, Geth frigates recovering their last straggling troops from the battlefield. More and more as time went by, radio interference from whatever the Geth were using diminished.

Alenko skidded to a stop at the edge of the Aguilar Center's campus... that is, what little was left of it. Where there had been a vast sprawl of office buildings, warehouses, laboratory campuses and factories, there was now only a huge lake of molten rock nearly a kilometer across. Shepard could feel the heat even through the skin of the Mako. From outside the vehicle, it was almost painful.

"This must be where that ship came down," Alenko said.

Williams sighed fearfully, "It looks like a bomb went off... what kind of technology could do this?"

Shepard knew, but didn't have the heart to tell her that there was nothing exotic about the technology, only the scale of it. The melted ground beneath the ship was the effect of a drive core discharge - built up electrical charge from its element zero core finally being released back into the environment - but on a scale so huge it would have dwarfed the discharge from a hundred Alliance warships. This wasn't a feat of advanced technology, just a matter of unimaginable power concentrated on a single spot. Those who'd been caught in its path had probably hadn't had time to feel pain before the tremendous power surge incinerated them.

But she had no time at all to worry about the dead. She bounded up the stairs towards the administrative building and the big communications antenna on its rooftop. The double doors to the lobby opened automatically, and Shepard slowed her pace, scanning the room with her rifle to look for any signs of survivors that might be right now coming out of hiding.

There were no survivors in the lobby. There was a large dome-shaped object studded with blinking red LEDs mounted on top of a cluster of liquid hydrogen tanks. Shepard stopped and stared at it, her mind spinning. She knew what it was, but she also knew what it couldn't be, what it couldn't possibly be. After all, it had been a Geth force that had attacked Eden Prime, so they certainly wouldn't have left a Thanix-series inertial fusion device, left by a certain Turian terrorist as a parting gift...

Shepard heard a low metal sound from the other side of the lobby, past the double doors that lead to the medical center campus. She'd come to know that sound by now: spikes retracting, the altered dead becoming active.

"Cover me!" Shepard yelled and ran to the side of the fusion bomb, omni-tool already open and glowing around her arm.

Alenko ran past her and knelt down next to the bomb, extending his barrier to enclose them all. Williams stood behind him, firing over the top of his head in short bursts, dropping the grey humanoid figures one after another. They still didn't seem to react to being shot at all; each of them kept on charging, ignoring her fire as long as they could. "Hurry, Commander!" she shouted, and fired off a carnage grenade at the nearest one. The grenade blew the creature in half at the waist, and its torso began to pull itself across the floor towards them on its one good arm. "Oh for fuck's sake..."

Shepard scanned the device's wiring, looking for vulnerable circuitry. Nothing useful there, the thing had quantum-dot detonator that was plugged directly into the firing mechanism. So she focussed on the mechanism instead: a standard Turian-designed nanoprocessor hardened against radiation. She got the impression that this particular device wasn't designed to be tamper proof; it was meant for demolition or excavation, not for terrorism or warfare. It should have been much harder to arm than to disarm, if only to avoid accidents...

She scanned the control circuitry and searched for active signals. Finding one, she loaded and fired a logic bomb from her omni-tool that forced the device to reconnect all of its wireless services. The system reached out, and Shepard's omni-tool latched on to it...

Williams' assault rifle sputtered and died, last thermal clip spent. She reached down without looking and plucked Alenko's side arm from his holster, aiming and firing headshots at the dull grey bodies around them. A wall of the creatures hit the barrier at a full run and began to pound their fists against it like rioters trying to break down a wall; Williams pulsed the trigger until her hand hurt, then dropped the spent pistol and pulled the shotgun from her suit's alternate hardpoint. "Now you've done it! You've woken up Andy!" and then squeezed the trigger, letting the M-27 shotgun named Andy blast its own opinion into the nearest creature's rib cage.

Shepard let the detonator's program code scroll past her and skimmed it as fast as her eyes could move. Detonation protocols, command protocols, encryption protocols... it was a standard Elkoss Combine safety mechanism, so the detonator subroutine would be a series of nested if/else statements that... "Found it!" It was a familiar block of code that looked like an upside-down staircase. She copied the entire block, deleted it, and then replaced it with an identical block with the same variables filled with garbage data.

The detonator circuit beeped twice. Shepard saw its services broadcast a warning that the trigger was about to fire. Then it threw out a dozen different system errors and shut itself down as its main processor overloaded and crashed.

"I got it," Shepard said, breathing a sigh of relief, "Damn that was close."

" _How_ close?" Alenko said through clenched teeth. There were a still a dozen of the creatures around them, swarming around and pounding on the barrier, climbing on top of it like insects trying to get through.

"You don't want to know." Shepard toggled her omni-tool for another signal burst. _Infrared band. Thirty megajoules should do it..._ "Stay down and cover your heads!" she raised her omni-tool, gave Williams some time to duck, and fired.

All twelve of the creatures around the barrier all burst into flames at once, ignited by a surge of radiation so intense it instantly heated the surfaces of their bodies well past their flash points. They all wheezed and screamed at once, and all collapsed as what was left of their muscles burned to ash around them.

Kaiden held the barrier in place a few moments longer, just long enough to make sure the mutilated corpses around them were no longer a threat. When he lowered it, he coughed at a smell like burning leather and rotten eggs. "I hope we never see anything like those things again," he rasped.

Shepard frowned, "I wouldn't bet on it... Williams, where's the beacon?"

"Probably on the landing pad. They would have needed a shuttle or something to move it out of here." She started for the doors on the opposite side of the lobby and the medical center beyond it. Across a foot bridge and up two flights of stairs brought them to a large open-air platform overlooking what used to be the administrative center and its sprawl of buildings and offices. Now it looked out over a slowly-cooling lake of molten lava where the Geth dreadnaught had landed.

The Prothean beacon was in the center of the platform, pulsing with an ethereal green light. It looked intact, undisturbed, and amazingly active for something that had waited in the ground for fifty thousand years. Still, she had learned a long time ago about gift horses... "Normandy, this is Shepard. The Beacon is secure. Request immediate evac."

Captain Anderson sounded utterly astounded at this. "Commander, we're seeing Geth ships already leaving orbit, heading for the mass relay. Are you sure they didn't leave without it?"

"It's right here at the medical center. I'm sure this is what they came for, but for whatever reason they didn't take it with them."

"Huh... Alright, we're on our way to pick you up. I'll have Joker get as close as he can to your current position."

"Have it land by the cargo tram, Captain. Our current position is..." she looked at the lake of molten rock beyond the medical center, "The LZ is too hot. _Literally_."

"Copy that. We'll meet you around on the other side. Normandy out."

Shepard turned to face Alenko and Williams by the beacon. They were both standing next to it, apparently surprised and puzzled by all the activity around it. Williams saw her looking and stepped closer to her, "It wasn't doing anything like this when they dug it up. Something must have activated it."

"Is that bad?" Shepard asked.

"No idea. Except that the Geth left without it, and that kinda makes me think they couldn't figure out a safe way to load it onto their ship."

Shepard considered this, looking at the beacon for a long moment. "Some kind of defense mechanism, maybe?"

"That's what I was thinking. Could be dangerous to touch. That would explain why they left it behind."

Shepard nodded. "What do you think, Kaidan? Can you lift it biotically?"

Alenko grinned, "Easily. It's not much more than half a ton. Where do you want it?"

"We'll take it over to the cargo dock..." she heard the rumbling sound from the distance and looked to the west in time to see the glinting metal hull of the Normandy moving towards them, skimming over the tops of trees. Captain Anderson signaled again from the CIC, "Normandy to Shepard. Standby for evac."

"Roger, Normandy. Standing by. Kaiden...?"

Alenko took a deep breath, held out his hands, and collected a power field in his palms. Dark energy gathered in a swirl and then bent itself to his will: he encircled the beacon, penetrated its core as evenly as he could, and lifted it off the deck.

The beacon didn't move. It didn't even budge. It might as well have been bolted down.

"Huh," Kaiden tried again, lifting with more force. Again, the beacon refused to move, and he got the distinct impression his feet were getting heavier. "That's weird..."

Normandy passed overhead and Shepard followed it with her eyes. The stealth recon vessel was a beautiful ship: sleek, hemicylindrical upper hull with its cargo bay and engineering module slung underneath. The four Tantalus-series mass effect engines could balance the ship on the tip of a flagpole in the hands of an average pilot; in the hands of someone like Jeff "Joker" Moreau the ship could practically dance on the head of a pin. Control veins on the forward engines tilted downwards as the ship slowed and the ground shook as its mass effect field repelled the very planet beneath their feet.

"It's fighting me," Alenko said, "What gives?"

"Problems, El Tee?" Williams asked.

"No, it's probably just stuck on the railing or something. Maybe I can pull it loose..." Kaiden changed the direction of the field and started to pull. As before, the beacon didn't move... but Kaiden _did_. The green glow around it doubled and then tripled in intensity and he felt himself being dragged towards it as if gravity itself had shifted.

He left go of the beacon and tried to back away. It pulled him in harder. He felt a tingle in the back of his skull, something like a biotic warp field closing around him. The beacon was reaching into him, penetrating his flesh, trying to get a grip on his internal organs...

"Lieutenant! Don't move!" Shepard was at his side in an instant. She grabbed him around the waist, planted her feet on the deck and twisted, pulling him away from the beacon. Her extra mass was enough to throw him clear of the beacon... but the motion pushed her that much closer to it. Alenko hit the deck and rolled, and by the time he got back to his feet, Commander Shepard was hovering three meters off the ground.

The Beacon's grip tightened, and Shepard went rigid, arms and legs pulled out to the sides as if the mass effect fields were trying to tear her apart. The green glow intensified until it almost swallowed her; Shepard screamed, and then started to shake.

Alenko ran to pull her free, but Williams grabbed his collar and snatched him back. "Don't touch her! It could be too dangerous!"

"Commander!" Alenko shouted, "Commander can you hear me?!"


	13. Chapter 12

**? - Vigil: The Vision**

She didn't hear Alenko or Williams. She didn't hear the sickly buzzing sound from the beacon as its ancient circuits began to overload from its second forced download in as many hours. She didn't hear anything at all, except for the sounds of voices she couldn't have heard and screams in a language she didn't understand.

She saw a creature that looked like a fusion between a human being and a willow tree, standing in a bunker or a shelter somewhere, reaching for a window flooded with light that was too bright to be the sun.

She saw machinery - circuitry, wires, power sources - resting in a bed of torn flesh.

She saw emotions with her eyes that she had only felt in her heart before: despair, sorrow, resignation.

She saw living flesh being stripped from the bone, peeled back layer by layer and folded back against itself; she saw the same flesh being layered back into place like a frosting on a cake, corrupted somehow on its return.

She saw a machine, black and menacing, enormous and powerful the way one might think of a vengeful god, standing over her, marching past.

She saw another humanoid, something almost insect-like with four glowing eyes and clawed hands, like something out of a childhood nightmare.

The images repeated and looped; sometimes they moved and sometimes they flickered. Sometimes they reversed directions and sometimes they reversed order, and sometimes she saw two different images in each eye.

People fleeing, people dying. Machinery drilled into flesh, and more flesh being discarded. Something massive moved over all of it, something so vast it defied all explanation...

She saw a ball of fire in a ring of smoke.

She saw a moon tumbling through the milky way.

She saw a jet black circle against a bright orange background.

She saw the Geth Battleship, reaching for _her_...

The explosion hit her like a sledgehammer and sent her tumbling head over heels as she fell. She landed on her head and shoulders, tumbled and rolled, and landed on a heap next to the stairway. Alternating visions of ground and sky filled her awareness and she felt the world going dark around her. From somewhere else, like a voice heard under water, she heard Lieutenant Alenko declaring a medical emergency...


	14. Chapter 13

**13 - Eden Prime: Now they're pissed**

The explosion had knocked all three of them off their feet and buried flakes of shrapnel in his armor, but Alenko hadn't even been the one closest to the blast. Commander Shepard had not only been closest, she'd been held fifteen feet above the deck like an insect pinned to an invisible board; the full force of the blast had thrown her halfway across the platform and bounced her off a wall before she hit the ground trembling, spasms of some kind of seizure wracking her body.

"Normandy! Man down! Need _immediate_ dustoff!" Lieutenant Alenko was shouting and panting at the same time. He dropped to his knees and skidded to a stop, rolled the Commander onto her side and began scanning with his omni-tool. Her suit's computer had already begin transmitting medivac flags; compound fracture of the left arm, compound fracture of the right collar bone and scapula, two broken ribs, internal hemorrhage of the left lung...

Alenko heard the distant thunderclap of the Commander's sniper rifle and the sounds of return fire hitting the deck around them and somehow failed to care about it. He wired his omni-tool into Shepard's suit computer and told the hardsuit to administer omni-gel, first to the internal wounds and then to the broken bones. The suit complied, nanofiber needles sinking deep into the commander's body. They also injected a mild sedative into the mix; not what he'd asked for, but certainly helpful to stop the involuntary muscle spasms that were still rampaging through her body.

"Lieutenant!" Williams was shouting. He suddenly realized it wasn't the first time. "Alenko! Wake the hell up! We've got incoming!"

And it occurred to him, also not for the first time, that someone was shooting at them. He looked up from Commander Shepard's still writhing body and saw a row of dark shapes marching towards them from near the edge of the still-smoldering lava lake left by the Geth battleship. Huge shapes, he could see; each of them was probably twice the length and three times the height of the Mako, and each was firing from both some kind of heavy particle cannon and a much smaller fast-firing weapon that was tearing pieces out of the walls around them.

Little other choice. Alenko lifted Commander Shepard up by her armpits, then ducked down and hoisted her onto his shoulders in a fireman's carry. Chief Williams reloaded the sniper rifle and fired another thunderous shot; the shell exploded against the barrier of one of the larger machines, which otherwise didn't even seem to notice.

Alenko scrambled up the cargo ramp while Williams fired again and again. She followed him inside the building as two huge energy pulses hit the wall behind her, missing her by inches. The splash of charged particles melted the metal of the walls and sent her kinetic barriers flaring out of control. Another ten meters up the ramp would get them to safety; it might as well have been ten kilometers.

"Coming in, ground team! Hold on to your teeth!" Lieutenant Moreau's warning arrived just three seconds before his covering fire. The double scream cut through the air from two pairs of disruptor torpedoes tumbling out of Normandy's torpedo bay. The weapons weren't particularly large or intimidating, but they moved quickly and precisely, landing in a concentrated pattern directly in front of the four Geth war machines.

The detonations were small but violent, more like firecrackers than military weapons; they didn't produce big sprays of debris or fireballs or smoke clouds, or anything one might associate with a powerful air-launched missile. But the forces produced by those torpedoes tore the Geth machines apart; two of them spun backwards and rolled into the treeline as if they'd been kicked over by an invisible giant, and the other two simply flew apart, scattered into the air as a spreading cloud of debris.

Normandy passed over the top of Aguilar centered, circled over the molten pool where the battleship had landed, and then banked over and began a spiraling descent to the other side of the building. Alenko doubled his pace, heading back into the lobby and down the stairs where the bodies of the husk creatures had by now burned to little human-shaped piles of ash. His heads up display told him there were more Geth approaching at the edge of his detection range, but the Normandy was already closer.

"Holy... move it, people! Massive contact on radar!"

Not that Alenko could actually move any faster, but he willed his legs to pump harder as he hopped down the staircase to the lobby. He saw winds kicking up on the other side of the entrance and then the moving shadow that must have been the Normandy's descent; a few more desperate paces and he was at the doorway and the stairs leading down to the courtyard. Normandy was there, its two lower engine nacelles folding back against its sides, forward stabilizers folding downward to trim the ship's mass. Three landing feet extended from the ship's belly and wing pylons and the ship dropped almost clumsily to the concrete courtyard. The Geth contacts on his sensors were getting closer, and Alenko doubled his pass as Normandy's cargo bay ramp dropped out from the underside of the ship...

He had almost made it to the ship when the universe screamed.

It registered in his ears as deep rumbling sound, something like a foghorn striking an impossibly low note. But the sound was so powerful that it made his eyeballs vibrate and so menacing that the hair on the back of his neck simply detached from their roots and fled. His arms and legs wouldn't move for a second and he dropped to his knees with Commander Shepard still draped across his shoulders.

Another shadow moved across the landscape, this one large enough to cover even the Normandy. The outline of the Geth battleship had appeared in the clouds again, falling down around their heads like the world's most frivolous lawsuit.

Williams had fallen too, but was back on her feet. The sound of the Geth battleship had left her pale and shaking but the adrenaline rush had only made her move faster. She hoisted Alenko to his feet, briefly lifting Commander Shepard along with him, and ushered him and his burden straight up the ramp into Normandy's cargo bay. "We're aboard!" she shouted, and then promptly threw herself face down on the deck.

Lieutenant Moreau didn't even bother lifting off the ground. He firewalled the throttles on all four engines, and Normandy shot forward, skidding across the concrete and grassy landscapes like a runaway vehicle, building speed. After a moment he managed to lift the nose enough to gain altitude, and Normandy began to ascend into the air at almost the same moment a million tons of concentrated evil crashed into the ground behind them on five enormous articulated legs.

The threat display on the bridge flashed, warning him that something had just painted Normandy with what it could only assume was a targeting laser; in fact, Moreau could actually see the red glare of that laser through the viewport, and on instinct banked the Normandy hard to starboard and increased their ascent angle. A column of air as thick as a man's chest suddenly flashed with incandescence, something like the jet from a flamethrower, only moving at supersonic speeds. It missed Normandy's hull by only a handful of meters, and Moreau could feel the heat of it even through the bulkhead.

"What the hell are they shooting at us?!"

Corporal Draven asked, almost calmly, "What kind of radiation peaks at... three hundred and fifty million evs?"

Moreau jinked the ship again, dodging another shot, "Shit, I don't know... Gamma rays? Is that a gamma ray laser?" he swung the controls and put the ship into a hard evasive turn as another burning red beam sliced through the sky, narrowly missing the hull. "Tali, you know what? That's a fucking gamma ray laser!"

"Who the hell uses gamma ray lasers?!"

"The guy who's trying to kill us, that's who!" he tapped his console without even stopping for breath and added, "Adams, pop the heat sink, we're going cold as soon as we break atmo!"

"Copy! Flushing heat sinks! Stealth systems will have full function in twenty seconds!"

Moreau's radar showed that the Geth battleship had begun ascending again. It was rising after them, and moving _fast_. Normandy was already exceeding standard military power; at almost fifteen gees acceleration, it had passed the point where its mass effect fields could be perfectly balanced and now he could actually feel the acceleration starting to pin him to his chair. If they pushed any harder it would start to crush the crew alive, starting with himself. And the Geth battleship was already ascending at twice that rate of speed...

Another lock on warning, and Normandy banked to starboard just in time to avoid another shot. The laser beam - if that's really what it was - cut through the air like a search light and left a little glittering trail where it faded out, as if the very air it passed through had been traumatized. That weapon was so powerful it could probably destroy entire atmospheres.

"Passing thermocline," Draven announced, "Convection limit!"

"Stealth systems engaged! Adams, we're suppressing emissions!"

"Copy that! Estimate seventy eight minutes at present output until thermal saturation and then we'll have to vent!"

"So seventy eight minutes to shake off the big scary monster that's chasing us..." He looked at the threat display again. The Geth battleship was still rising to pursue them, but its trajectory had stopped mirroring theirs. It was firing again as well, but not nearly as accurately. Normandy's kinetic barriers were scattering its radar and lidar signals, making the ship harder to spot, and with thermal emissions suppressed it showed up on enemy optics as a dull blackbody against the background of space, barely enough to register except at very close range. And the Geth ship was now moving through the upper atmosphere at such a high rate of speed that the air around it was beginning to heat and ionize, which only made things worse.

Moreau turned the ship hard over, changing headings. The new course would put Normandy into a polar orbit around Eden Prime almost ninety degrees from where the Geth ship was now headed. Forty five minutes from now, they would power out of orbit on a hyperbolic trajectory that would rocket away from the planet while also keeping the Geth ship on the far side of it; they could spend the five minutes it would take to vent the heat sink and then go dark again before the Geth could reacquire. By the time the battleship came around in its orbit far enough to regain a line of sight, Normandy would be almost a light second away and still accelerating; they could power down their engines and coast from that point, letting the vastness of space hide them from the enemy.

He could see it like he could see the back of his hand. So this was exactly what Moreau decided not to do. "All engines stop!" he shouted, and cut the throttles down to zero. The faint rumble of mass effect engines descended to a whisper and then again to silence.

Captain Anderson's voice tickled his ear from the intercom circuit, "Not gonna do the obvious thing, Joker?"

"They're machines, Captain. They can calculate an ideal escape vector. Hell, I bet they've already computed our most likely exit path."

Private Draven nodded, and without needing to be asked, pulled up the ship's tactical inventory. "Torpedo decoys one and two, ready for sortie."

"Drop them both," Anderson said, "Have them stay quiet to spoof our suppressed emissions, but in the mean time let's stay on the drift."

"Drones ready," Draven said, "Launching now."

Two small armored covers near the midpoint of the Normandy's engine nacelles slid open, and from these, two small, flat-bodied spacecraft emerged and began to fly away from the ship under just the thrust of their maneuvering jets. Puffs of hot gas ejected by a combination of battery power and chemical reactions set them moving in opposite directions as the Normandy drifted higher and higher from the surface of Eden Prime, like a javelin tossed into the sky. They executed their evasion program, waiting until they were far enough way that their emissions wouldn't silhouette the Normandy itself, and then fired up their main engines and accelerated at high speed.

One of the drones immediately exploded, vaporized on the spot by one of the Geth ship's terrible beam weapons. "What the _shit_...!" Moreau fought to keep bladder control at the same time he gave the second drone new orders and commanded it to begin a series of random evasive maneuvers as it assumed Normandy's ideal escape vector. Then he brought up Normandy's engines and added power again - not full military power, as before, but enough to accelerate at about two gees away from Eden Prime and away from the Geth before any of them managed to get a firing solution on the erratically-maneuvering drone.

"We gonna make it, El Tee?" Corporal Draven asked.

"Just you watch, kid. I'll lose these slugs easily."

Anderson said, "Be careful up there. That battleship's pilot is some kind of ace..."

"Well then it sucks to be them," Moreau said, adding engine power as the battleship slid down below the horizon, "Because we've got a joker."


	15. Chapter 14

**14 - Pilgrimage: Thumbing a Ride**

The panic at First Landing seemed almost like a fresh shock to an already traumatized society, a fresh burst of adrenaline to a people who had already been pushed too far. The first wave had had the virtue of being merely unexpected and surprising and it had let the people take their dread in stride. "So that happened..." was the thought, "There's been an attack." There'd been anxiety and despair, but not real panic, not this far away from the battlefield. While there was a question about the colony's survival, no one doubted that they still had some time to sit and watch and see how this horrible day was going to play out.

Until then the second battleship arrived. When that happened, all hell broke loose at First Landing.

The civilians and mercenaries that had been calmly packing their belongings into the holds of space ships "just in case" abruptly stopped packing and battened down their hatches. The first ship launched less than a minute after the new arrival, the others in short order. A ship called the Strontium Mule blasted off with half a launch gantry still attached to its cargo hold, and a tiny six person orbiter called the Southern Cross nearly collided with a grain freighter trying to launch at the same time. The sudden explosive violence from the distant battleship only made things worse; flashing red beams cut through Eden Prime's pristine atmosphere, and the shockwaves from the second battleship's cataclysmic landing rocked every ship in the spaceport at once.

Of course, Tali'Zorah knew that it wasn't a second battleship, that it was actually the same ship returned to the scene of the crime. She didn't quite know what had caused it to turn around and come back, but the thermal signature and mass concentration of that ship was too similar for it to be a even a different ship of the same class. She'd seen the big deformed turian mention something about planting a Thanix device, and that had been enough to send her running back to the quadbike and fleeing back to First Landing like a pyjack at a krogan barbecue. But that device had never detonated, which meant the resistance at Constant must have disarmed it.

So probably the battleship was here to settle up accounts the hard way.

She arrived at the launch pad to the sound of automatic gunfire. She recognized the sound. It was the hissing crackle of a Tempest sub-machinegun set to full automatic. The roar of the gun sent chaos through the pad and sent civilians running in every possible direction, and only after the gunfire stopped could she hear the screams. The shooting was coming from the security station at the foot of the dock's main gangway. As the civilians fled from the shots, Tali'Zorah swam through them like a fish against a current.

"Garoth!" she heard someone shouting. Captain Willem's voice, she realized, and soon two others joined in, shouting the same name. They were shouting it like they were trying to get the attention of someone who was already looking for them. So that's why they're still here. Waiting for a missing crewman.

And, she realized, they'd shot at the civilians when they'd demanded to be let on board. Whoever this Garoth character was, he must have been pretty important to Captain Willem.

Tali'Zorah got to the front of the crowd at almost the same time as a short, pudgy balding man in a hideous yellow tracksuit. One of Willem's crew grabbed the man in the track suit by his elbow and helped him out of the crowd while two others kept the would-be refugees at bay with a pair Tempest machineguns. Tali'Zorah pushed in right behind him as if she was always meant to come with him; Garoth gave her a puzzled backward glance until Tali'Zorah met Willem's gaze and a thin smile flashed on his lips. "Changed your mind, eh Tali?"

"Seemed like the thing to do!"

Willem started to say something else, but the world around them screamed with a sound like an explosion that didn't actually end. Everyone around the security station stopped completely and stood very, very still; half of them cringed down into themselves, trying to make themselves smaller, the other half looked skyward at the source of the sound. Tali'Zorah was among the latter population, there saw a brightly glowing fireball rising into the sky on top of a pillar of smoke. Her HUD told her the fireball had a transponder signal beaming from it and quickly identified the ship as the MSV Scipio Africanus. Moments later, a second thunderous roar and another fireball began to rise, and then a third. And then two more. The Worthington, the Lubbock Lights, the City of Corpus Cristi.

"I'm with those guys!" Willem said through a momentary break in the din, "Let's get the hell out of here!" He gestured for the rest of his men to come inside. The crowd closed around them like a flood, trying to rush the door as soon as the guns weren't pointed at them anymore. Willem slapped the controls to close the security door and then hit the red 'panic' button on the wall next to the panel; the door was now locked, and kinetic barriers were coming on to keep anyone outside from forcing it open.

The security station was little more than a set of desks and sofas where the crew could sit comfortably while guarding the entrance to their ship; the five of them ran through it like the place was on fire. They sprinted across the gangway with Captain Willem bringing up the rear, vaulted through the airlock and slid down the ladder to the bridge level one after another.

Captain Willem was the last one aboard, and so he was the one to hit the controls to seal the airlock. The rest of his men dashed to their seats on the bridge, and Tali'Zorah took the only station she had never seen anyone else use purely because she didn't want to be crushed to death when the ship finally blasted off. "Breezy, you got that launch procedure up yet?" Willem asked, "We need to be out of here like yesterday!"

"I can't get the station to activate the null field!" A kid who looked entirely too young to be responsible for his own safety, let alone anyone else's, answered with a squeak, "Docking clamps won't release without it!"

"Did you request launch clearance?"

"Four times! It's supposed to be automated, right?"

Tali'Zorah looked at the monitors in front of her, the controls and the displays and all the information the ship was giving its crew. Her HUD scanned the display and translated their meaning, and her eye was immediately drawn to a prompt overlaying all the others that said 'Dock control delegated to Station 4' and two touch buttons beneath it that said 'Ok' and 'Override.'

"Godammit... just because we're in a hurry too!"

The man Willem had been waiting for, Garoth, chimed in, "You think we could override the clamps?"

"Too dangerous without the null field active. The vibrations from our own engines might damage the ship. That's why their failsafe won't let it happen."

"Come on, Majesty's tough, she can take it!"

"Yeah, I know that. Try convincing the dockmaster's VI!"

"Override the clamps?" Tali'Zorah asked, "I think I can do that."

A half dozen eyes were suddenly directly on her. Flight control stations all around the room went quiet. The alien sitting at the - what was this station anyway? - Systems Ops station in the corner of the room had suddenly become real.

Tali'Zorah reached up and hit the 'Override' command and then, when a list of functions appeared, began toggling them on and off exactly as needed. She activated the nullification field that would absorb the vibrations from the ship's engines, set the docking clamps to rapid release, told the gangway to fully retract from the ship, and activated the kinetic barriers around the dock that would deflect engine blast away from anything or anyone outside. None of this took particularly long, but by the time she was finished, Garoth had just begun to move his lips to ask the question, "Will. Seriously. What the fuck?"

"Got it," Tali'Zorah answered, "I can setup a manual release. On your go!"

Willem and Garoth exchanged a long, tense glance. Then both of them sat back in their seats and strapped themselves in. "Ten seconds, Tali!"

"Releasing the clamps in ten... nine... eight..."

"Main reactor's up..." Garoth announced, "Engine start!"

A distant, growling rumble started in the deck beneath them and began to rise in intensity. Outside the ship, the noise was was actually more of a howl, and four gouts of blue-white flame were pouring out of the Majesty's main engines and splashing down against the floor of the dock like water out of a spigot.

By the time Tali'Zorah got to one, even the nullifiiers couldn't keep them from feeling the worst of the vibration. But by then, it didn't matter; she hit the command to release the docking clamps, and in that moment all eight of the magnetic pads that had held the ship aloft disengaged and retracted. The force of the Majesty's engines, until now held in check only by the docking clamps, began to lift the ship out of the heavy lift dock, slowly at first and then increasingly faster. The blast deflectors did their work and funneled all the superheated exhaust from the engines back down into the dock so that the people still angrily beating their fists against the security station door wouldn't be cooked alive by the space ship launching directly over their heads.

"Got our ascent profile locked," Willem announced to the crew as much to himself, "Coming up on max Q..."

Tali'Zorah braced herself for that. The point of dynamic pressure on the hull was not always a pleasant experience on a ship whose design made no concessions at all for aerodynamics. The telltale vibration in the hull was already starting to become unpleasant...

The deck shuddered hard, a strong jolt to starboard. Tali'Zorah's monitor lit up with an impact warning: something had just hit the ship's kinetic barriers along the port side.

Someone on the other side of the bridge shouted, "Holy shit... the Lubbock just exploded!"

Lubbock Lights had launched before they did, so they must have flown through its debris plume. Tali'Zorah switched to the external camera; sure enough, the Majesty was now ascending through a huge egg-shaped fireball where MSV Lubbock Lights had exploded in mid air. She was about to search back through the camera's buffer when a fresh fireball appeared at the top of the column of smoke that had been the Scipio Africanus' flight path.

It hadn't exploded on its own. Tali'Zorah could see a line of red fire sweeping across the sky just below where the fireball had formed, like a laser beam in a foggy room. An energy beam so intense it ionized the very atmosphere around it like a bolt of lightning hitting ground...

"The Scipio..." Garoth gasped as if the sight of it had knocked the wind out of him, "My god, they're shooting at us!"

"I've got barriers up, for what it's worth," Willem said, "Hope it'll be enough!"

"It won't!" Tali'Zorah shouted before she even knew what she was going to say, "They're using a directed energy weapon! Shields are useless!"

"Shit..." Willem gave up on that idea and instead transferred more power to the engines. The vibration in the hull increased, pressure on the blocky outer structure increasing. Tali'Zorah felt herself being bounced around again as they flew through scattering debris from the Africanus. Then a hammer blow as one of the fiery red beams reached out from the distance and struck the Corpus Cristi amidships. The latter ship had been a grain carrier, and so its destruction was more cataclysmic than any of the others; three thousand tons of grain poured out of its cargo hold into a rapidly diffusing cloud that instantly ignited into the biggest, most violent fireball Tali'Zorah had ever seen up close. The shockwave rocked the Majesty violently sideways, and seconds later the fireball expanded into their path. They flew right into it and then through it in just half a second, and then Captain Willem added more power to the engines and slammed his entire crew down into their seats at almost five gees standard.

Tali'Zorah watched the monitors carefully. She saw more flashing red beams, more explosions aft. More ships being struck by the energy beams, exploding, falling, dying in the skies over First Landing. After a moment she saw the searching red beams striking down at First Landing itself, slicing away whole chunks of real-estate at a time. It was like watching someone tear down an ant hill with a fire hose; in a matter of moments the spaceport was gone, and moments later, the scorched landscape of Eden Prime fell away behind them.

As the distance grew, her sense of relief was replaced by her sense of horror and dread. The Geth battleship had begun scouring the landscape with its weapons, striking randomly. It toppled two arcologies almost at once, slicing across the base of them like a woodsman with a chainsaw. It burned away at the remaining docks and landing pads of Xiong Memorial Spaceport and rained jets of fire down on a few random settlements in the pastures. On and on it went, raging at the landscape, until a few moments passed and the Majesty's trajectory began to carry it over the horizon, safely away from the carnage.

"I repeat," Willem was saying, and Tali'Zorah realized he'd been talking for a while, "This is MSV Majesty, registration one foxtrot four foxtrot two alpha bravo six three. We are a Dutch-flagged civilian vessel registered out of Beckenstein Colony. Please don't fire on us!"

"We copy that, Majesty," a voice answered him on his radio, "Just wanted to confirm. All civilian ships are advised to make for Arcadia Orbit at best possible speed. Do not engage hostile forces and do not attempt to leave the system. Reinforcements are inbound in three hours forty minutes."

"Reinforcements?" Garoth asked, "Where the hell did they come from?"

"I don't think they're here yet. The ship that just radioed us was a loan attack ship, but I think they must have sent a courier or something to the Alliance naval base at Arcadia."

"To hell with that! After what we just saw?! I want to get us out of this system as fast as we possibly can!"

"We're pushing thrust limits as it is," Willem grunted, "How long do you want to stay at five gees?"

Garoth grunted out an answer that was as unintelligible as it was indecisive. Gravity was pressing down on all of them, pinning them to their seats. They all knew the drill and how to cope with it - keep your head still, keep your arms and legs tense, don't let your limbs go slack after you finish moving them - but it still didn't make it any easier.

Tali'Zorah, on the other hand, barely noticed the g-forces; her suit had started squeezing on her legs and hips to force blood back towards her head and the suit's computer had already increased the gas pressure in her helmet to make it easier for her to breathe. She could sustain these g forces for a week if she had to, and would still be functional even if the rest of the crew passed out. But since pointing this out to the human crew would have seemed like bragging, she simply said, "Let's keep up this burn for another two hours. That should give us enough of a heard start over the Geth to start the run up to FTL."

"That's a good idea, but we'd have to calculate a Brachistochrone trajectory out of the system and there's no way in hell I'm doing that by hand at five and a half gees!"

"You don't have to, remember? Somebody fixed your navigational computer!"

"Huh..." Willem's grin spread from ear to ear, "That is a very good point! Alright, five gees for two hours! Get started on that orbit plot in the mean time!"

"On it," Tali'Zorah said, and brought up the navigational computer's interface on her screen. Simple equation with simple factors: The Majesty just needed to get far enough away from Eden Prime for the crew to risk temporarily cutting thrust long enough to get sealed away in their stasis pods for the long journey out of the system. Once in the protective cocoons of the stasis pods, they would all be protected from the ravages of time, space, cosmic radiation and the incredible g-forces that would manifest as the engines unleashed their true power and launched the Majesty through space at well over eighty gravities. It would take another twenty four weeks for the ship to reach the mass relay at the Zion system, and and at least a week more to cross the Arcturus System to reach the Capitol Relay.

And in her mind she saw exactly how a starship theft could be played out, as it had so many other times on so many other pilgrimages. She could reprogram the computer to wake her a day or two earlier than the others, either at turnaround or one of the regular midcourse maneuvers. It would be even simpler to re-set the life support systems for manual release, so Willem and his crew would never wake up again unless someone deliberately cut power to the pods. Failing that, she could always jettison the pods in the middle of the Serpent Nebula and let C-Sec recover them, or she could dump them in transit while the ship was still in FTL and let them tumble through the galaxy into the cold reaches of dark space. Once she got to the Serpent Nebula it was just two relay jumps to the Shrike Abyssal and a triumphant rendezvous with the Migrant Fleet along with a brand new ship to call her own. Tali'Zorah nar Raya vas Majesty would be a legend among her own people.

One hundred and seventy days to the nearest relay, and then just fourteen days through the relay network to rejoin her people as a hero...

"I'm programming our return trip," she said, shaking her head inside her helmet as she vanished the thought forever. "Soon as it's safe, we'd better get sealed up for the long trip."


	16. Chapter 15

**15 - Sovereign: Summon the Reapers**

There were no readouts to examine, no displays or tactical data. There wasn't even a large crew or a command center of sorts to fill it with background chatter and the business of running the ship. Sovereign possessed none of these things, and required none of them. It's technology was far beyond such mundanities. The intelligence that operated the ship's critical systems knew better than any living being how to use those senses and how to interpret their results; that this intelligence bothered to communicate those findings with Saren at all was, in some ways, more a kindness than a necessity.

"The human vessel is no longer visible," said a complex, overlapping voice that seemed to come from everywhere at once, "I cannot locate its presence."

"Then draw them back to us... attack the civilian ships trying to flee the colony. That attack ship will reverse course and come back to draw your fire away from noncombatants."

"Your prediction is not logical. They will not return."

"They'll return. They have a duty to protect civilians. Duty is everything to these humans."

"As you say..." there were a series of soft, almost musical hissing sounds from the power conduits far below, almost half a kilometer beneath his feet from where he was now standing. Saren "operated" Sovereign - if that was indeed the word for it - from a large compartment in the heart of the ship, set close to a throbbing power plant and an element zero core of enormous size and power, the exact workings of which he couldn't begin to comprehend. On almost any other ship this would be considered the engine room or drive center or propulsion room; on Sovereign, this was both the brain and heart and fuel source for the vessel, and in more ways than one, the truest essence of what the ship really was and what it represented.

Both the drive core and its power plant had been built to resemble a triped life form Saren didn't recognize. Not that he had ever been able to make out its true shape or size or dimension; he suspected it was just a statue or a stylized representation of some sort, but with most of the ship's power systems and data feeds wired through it, the effect - whatever it was supposed to be - was almost totally lost.

Minutes passed, almost half an hour, before Sovereign's voice announced, "The human vessel remains undetected. It has escaped."

Saren regarded the partially obscured shape with certain detachment and said, "Are you certain you didn't destroy it?"

"I did not destroy it," said the voice. More and more these days, Saren had grown accustomed to Sovereign's voice. When he'd first heard it, it sounded threatening and metallic, with an indifference that gave an air of absolute malevolence. But the more time he'd spent with Sovereign, the more soothing and famliar the voice had seemed. There were, he now realized, at least three voices overlapping in the composition; one of them was Saren's own voice, and another sounded a little like the voice of Axus, his old mentor. The third was a feminine tone he didn't recognize that almost sounded childlike except that he never could isolate it from the others even in a recording.

"Then we should head to the Zion System and try to cut them off," Saren said, "We're faster than they are, and they shouldn't be hard to overtake. They can't get there too quickly or their engine emissions will give them away." He sat on a small round blob of metallic growth that he had come to think of as a "chair" although it was really just a part of the machinery here he didn't understand. The space all around him was defined by an intricate mesh of bio-mechanical components, conduits and capacitors all connected to each other and to everything else. There was no discernible thrust axis or deck layout, just an inexorable gravitational pressure from the drive core that caused every object within and very near the ship to fall away from it at about two standard gravities. Even the engine room and power center was a spherical space where "down" was always directly away from the center and no matter where you were sitting or standing the drive core was always directly "up." Sovereign didn't even have walls in the traditional sense, just chambers where one cluster of components was kept isolated from another, with gravity always pushing all objects away from the core.

"Their engine emissions are irrelevant," said Sovereign, "My detection range is great enough that it should be visible to scans. The vessel must be using some means to dissipate the reflection from my senses. You would call it a form of 'stealth technology.'"

"A stealth ship, you say?" Saren scratched his chin, thinking this over, "That narrows it down. Benezia?"

In the far corner of the room, standing at something like attention between two escorting Geth Primes, Matriarch Benezia opened her omni-tool and began pulling up files from the latest Spectre intelligence dispatch. Saren knew, as she did, that the ship recognition profiles available to the Spectres were updated more often and more carefully than any other military or police force in the galaxy. If anyone knew what kind of human ships were flying with stealth tech, the Spectres did.

Before she could answer him, the holographic communicator on the floor in front of him flashed and beeped a connection request. The quantum entanglement system used for this device let Saren communicate with almost anyone in the galaxy in realtime, provided that someone also had a communicator whose transmitter was set to the same resonance frequency. Saren didn't understand how this technology worked either, but Sovereign did, and that was more than enough. "We will take all appropriate steps," Saren said, reassuringly, "Do not be overly concerned with this minor setback."

"Our ancient enemy was able to wage war against us for over a century," Sovereign said, "Prepared for us, trained for us, sabotaged us from without and from within. Whole worlds were lost to us, whole civilizations burned just to hinder us. Ours was a bitter harvest of what was sown by those who came before."

Saren's eyes started to throb, a dull ache in the front of his skull. Sovereign's emotions - if it could be said to have emotions - were bleeding through again. Sovereign was worried. "What harm can just on ship do?" He left it as a rhetorical question and tapped the controls for the holographic communicator.

An Asari commando appeared on the projector pad, glistening blue transparency in the otherworldly interior of Sovereign's engine room. She wore little except for a black leather leotard and pair of long slacks with deep cargo pockets for survival equipment; if he hadn't known ahead of time that Major Shiala was a high ranking Asari commando, he might have mistaken her for a stripper. "Commander Saren," said the commando as his image appeared on her end, "I believe I have good news for you."

Saren sat up a little straighter in his ersatz chair, "You have located the life form?"

"We have," Shiala said, "It is as you suspected. The human colonists have been using it to suplement their food supply. The creature may be using the artifact as a way to interface with ancient Prothean technology. For what purpose, I cannot say."

"Have you been able to gain access to the creature?"

"Not directly. Only enough to confirm its presence. But the colonists are controlling access, and will likely interfere with any attempt at direct contact. I am still considered something of an outsider here, so I am working to gain the confidence of the community. When the time is right, I will make a second attempt to infiltrate the creature's abode and, with any luck, gain access to the artifact before I am discovered."

"That won't be necessary Shiala," Saren said slowly, "I am sending you a battalion of Geth to overcome any resistance. They should reach you within the next six weeks. Once they arrive, you are to remove the human population from Feros and seize control of both the creature and the artifact it is protecting."

"You want us to begin a direct assault, Commander?" Shiala's voice contained more questions than her words.

Saren understood the skepticism. "We have entered a new phase of our mission. Direct action is authorized for all field assets. I am giving you full discretion over this operation as of now. Do not contact me again until you have obtained the cypher."

"Understood, Commander." Shiala saluted, and the channel closed.

"You must obtain the cypher if you are to properly interpret the prothean data," Sovereign's voice said from everywhere and nowhere, "That data will reveal the location of the conduit."

"I am aware of the objective, Sovereign. Trust that we are working diligently to see this plan to fruition." As he spoke, Saren heard Benezia's footsteps on the uneven, complex ground behind him, along with the two Geth primes that were her escorts. When he turned his head, he saw that Benezia wasn't actually standing behind him, but above him; Benezia had only walked close enough for her voice to carry to him, but from where he was sitting she was standing at almost a right angle to his "ground."

Saren looked at her a moment, studying her features. They were harder than usual, tenser. There was more to her demeanor than the lost of a trusted pupil. "What is bothering you, Benezia? Worried about the humans?"

"I find it very ironic that the humans, who know little of galactic affairs and next to nothing of our history, have become such a major obstacle to our cause."

"You believe the humans have the ability to halt our progress?"

Benezia shook her head, "They pose a problem, but hardly an insurmountable one."

"And yet you seem more agitated than I have ever seen you since you first came to me all those years ago. Since even before you began to see the clear path ahead of us. Is your confidence so shaken by the escape of one human vessel?"

Benezia steadied herself, shifted her weight, and lifted her chin as if in a gesture of regal command. "The vessel in question has just been identified. It was the Normandy, their new stealth reconnaissance vessel. Captain David Anderson in command. Nihlus was on board with orders to recover the beacon and transport it to the Citadel."

Saren considered this, grinding his teeth. Finding Nihlus on Eden Prime had been enough of a surprise; finding an Alliance attack ship in near orbit that didn't completely register on his sensors was another, less pleasant one. And when the thanix device at Aguilar Center failed to detonate at the proper time, he was far less surprised than disappointed in the universe for introducing such a forceful and determined adversary for no other reason than to frustrate him. That that enemy had turned out to be David Anderson, of all people, was not surprising in the slightest, especially in light of the ship's almost miraculous escape.

Even so... "No wonder they were so determined to recover the beacon... It doesn't matter. We have what we came for."

"It is unlikely they recovered it, Commander. However..."

"And even if the humans knew what we were after, there's nothing they could do to stop us."

"Commander..."

"And once we find the conduit, no one will. We'll be able to defeat the ancient enemy once and for all! When the Reapers return, we'll be ready for them! We'll be there, prepared to de-"

" _Commander!_ " Benezia said more forcefully, and Saren finally took notice. "Your involvement may have been exposed."

"What?" Saren came to his feet, his hands already clenching into fists.

"We detected a surveillance drone within the landing site. Likely Quarian in origin, operated manually. My Geth Primes compute a strong probability the owner of this drone was able to obtain audio and visual captures of one or both of us in proximity to the beacon."

Saren took this in stride, calmly considering. How bad could this really be? How much information could they have? Even if the Council believed their crewman's report on what the vision showed him, they wouldn't understand what it meant or what to do about it. So this changed nothing, in the end...

A blast of something so powerful it seemed to transcend sound echoed through the air, and the entire vessel shuddered and vibrated around them. Saren felt a pulse of anxiety, which then spooled up into something like rage. It wasn't just a tactical concern, it was the principle of the thing. What the beacon contained, where it came from, who it was meant for... it was an affront to everything he cared about everything that was good and true and proper in a chaotic universe.

Saren paced, agitated beyond all control, feeling the scream of his blood of unrestricted fury. Benezia just watched, stoic and patient, taking it all in. She had never seen a starship throw a tantrum before.

Saren circled the room, snarling, unbalanced, like an animal on the prowl. He reached out to Benezia and stopped just short of pouncing on her, gripping her by her biceps and pinning her to the wall behind her. She suppressed the primal fear of being cornered and then realized how strange it was that she hadn't felt any.

"Find that Quarian," Saren hissed, as Sovereign's voice perfectly echoed his, ringing out from the walls all around them, "Find it and _kill_ it!"


	17. Chapter 16

**16 - SSV Normandy: April 10th, 2183**

 _They cannot not be stopped._

 _Their force is overwhelming, vast and incomprehensible. They darken the skies of every world they visit and sweep resistance aside like a hurricane wind. Whole legions of troops swarm out to meet them, bringing all of their weapons and all their skill into the fight. Starships mass in huge armadas, focussing their fire, moving with unity and determination, and still the enemy simply sweeps them away with laughable ease._

 _She stands in an elevated place, on top of a rampart or a hilltop or a retaining wall somewhere, watching the carnage unfold, listening to the screams of the dying and the shrieks of pain and despair as the life is slowly crushed from this world like an overripe fruit._

 _It is as vivid as it is unreal, the warped false perception of dream-space. She somehow knows without knowing, sees without seeing, reliving events and perceiving facts divorced from the stimuli that led her to experience them in the first place. Death, destruction and terror spread across the surface of one world as the corruption of the Enemy spreads to the next like a bad disease. Voices twisted by the Enemy's terrible will speak in places they shouldn't be able to, a harbinger of the coming harvest..._

 _They will reap what they have sown. We are the harvest._

 _That is a phrase that has meaning. It is whispered, spoken, screamed, gasped. It is the underlying reality of what they are experiencing, and it frames the disaster perfectly. We shall be the harvest..._

 _They will reap what they have sown... We shall be the harvest... The scale of the enemy is encapsulated in those words, and suddenly her perspective shifts. A million lives here, a billion lives there, whole star systems stripped to the bedrock of anything more sophisticated than a protozoa. They have no fear of it, nor thrill in the act. It is just labor to them, just work. The work takes time and is sometimes difficult, but it is their task, their reason to exist, and they will reap what they had sown as they always had._

 _They will reap what they have sown..._

"We are the harvest..." Shepard murmured, and then immediately wondered who she'd been talking to. No one was there, though... or rather, no one she recognized. The images from the dream faded as quickly as they had come, quickly enough for her to realize they hadn't been images at all, just vague impressions barely coherent enough to be called memories.

Lieutenant Alenko appeared next to her, appearing upside down from his point of view as he floated across the space between them. Shepard recognized the dark lighting and concave wall behind him and realized she was somewhere in Normandy's infirmary. Which was interesting, because she couldn't remember anything that would explain what she was doing here. "Doctor Chakwas?" Alenko said, "I think she's waking up."

Shepard tried to sit up, but strapped at the waist to a medical bed on starship in flight, there was no "up" in which to sit. Instead she rubbed the dryness out of her eyes, unclipped the restraint on the medical bed and then turned herself into a floating tuck position in the air above it until her head was fully cleared.

Doctor Chakwas pulled up next to her, planting her feet on the wall next to the medical bed so her patient could talk to her without having to turn too much. The silver-haired physician had a career older than the Systems Alliance itself; she'd served with the United Nations Space Command as a teenager, twice seeing military action in the Colony Wars on Ganymede and Callisto. She was barely older than Lieutenant Alenko when humanity discovered the Charon Relay, and was already chief medical officer on an Alliance fleet orbiter at the time of the First Contact War. Needless to say, Doctor Chakwas had seen things in her life that no one else on the Normandy could even begin to imagine, so it was hard to imagine anything giving her real cause for concern.

So Commander Shepard felt her stomach tighten the moment Doctor Chakwas opened her omni-tool and started a Magnetic Resonance Scan, saying calmly all the while, "You had us worried there, Shepard. How are you feeling?"

It seemed like more than just bedside manner. Doctor Chakwas' scan wasn't an invasive one, but it was thorough, and she seemed more curious than anything else. "How did I end up here?" Shepard asked, "Are we still in Utopia?"

Alenko nodded, "We're in the outer system now, heading starward. Just about to make the transfer to FTL."

"Damn... how long was I out?"

"About two days," Chakwas said, "I was getting ready to have you placed under medical stasis, so I'm actually pleased you woke up before then and spared me the paperwork."

"You and me both, Doc... any idea what happened?"

"Something down there with the beacon, I think..."

Alenko added, "It's my fault. I must have triggered some kind of security system when I tried to move it. You had to push me out of the way."

Shepard frowned and glared directly at him, "You had no way of knowing that would happen, Lieutenant. But let's make a note of that in the future: Prothean technology doesn't react well to biotics."

"Actually, we don't even know if that's what set it off," Chakwas said, "Unfortunately we'll never get the chance to find out."

"The beacon exploded," Alenko added, "A system overload, maybe. The blast almost killed you. Your hardsuit switched over to triage mode. Williams and I had to carry you back here to the ship."

Shepard cringed, "That bad?"

"You suffered a severe stroke," Chawkwas said, "Aside from broken bones and lacerations, the beacon also ruptured blood vessels all through your brainstem and your frontal cortex. Getting you into surgery as quickly as they did probably saved your life."

Shepard cringed more, but nodded, "I appreciate that too... so what's the long-term damage?"

"Physically, you're fine. There's no sign of infection or permanent nerve damage, and even the surgical incisions healed without a problem. From what I can see, you should have been back on your feet two days ago."

"So I was in a... coma?"

"I did record some unusual brain activity while you were in stasis. Some abnormal beta waves. I also noticed a corresponding increase in your rapid eye movement. Those are signs typically associated with intense dreaming."

"Yeah I saw..." Shepard felt a chill. She pulled her knees up and hugged them to her shoulders, "I'm not sure what I saw. Death. Destruction. Nothing's really clear."

"Hm... I better add this to my report. It may..." The door hissed open, and a self-propelled human storm cloud drifted into the room as if propelled by solar winds. "Oh. Captain Anderson."

He floated to a stop behind Lieutenant Alenko, seeming to do so with just the lightest touch on the deck plating. Shepard wondered if Anderson had electromagnets built into his fingertips, or maybe he was just a magician who could summon the spirits of Isaac Newton and Johannes Kepler and force them to bend the rules for him. Neither would have surprised her. "How's my field commander holding up, Doctor?"

"Conscious again, and all her vitals are still normal. I'd say the Commander's going to be fine."

"Glad to hear it," Anderson nodded, and turned his head towards Shepard like a battleship's gun turret switching targets, "Commander, I'd like a word with you in private whenever you're feeling fit for duty."

Shepard shrugged, "I'm good to go, Captain... actually, feel pretty well rested."

Lieutenant Alenko - never one to miss a hint - saluted and then started to clear the room. "Aye, Captain, I'll be in the mess if you need me." Doctor Chakwas followed him, looking somehow relieved not to have to be involved in whatever conversation was about to come next.

Anderson waited until they were out of the room, then repositioned himself to perch in the infirmary's concave outer wall, facing her. "Sounded like that beacon hit you pretty hard, Commander. Are you sure you're okay?"

Shepard shook her head, "No, Sir, I'm not. We had a full company of marines down there plus the mechanized defenses, and the Geth nailed us to the goddamn wall..."

"The Geth haven't been seen outside the Perseus Veil in two centuries. Even if we knew they were coming, we had no idea what to expect."

Shepard frowned, but nodded. It was a sore point, but a true one. "I just don't like soldiers dying under my command, Sir."

"Jenkins wasn't your fault. You did a good job down there, given the circumstances. Better than I could have."

"Thanks for saying so, Captain... Also, what happened to Chief Williams? Did we leave her back on Eden Prime?"

"No, I had her reassigned to the Normandy. I figured we could use a woman like her."

"That's good. Williams is a fine soldier. She deserves it."

Anderson smiled, "Lieutenant Alenko said the same thing. Plus, she helped save my G.C. from a brain hemorrhage so she can't be all bad."

"Damn straight." Shepard unfolded from her spot above the medical bed, let herself drift into a more relaxed position that almost approximated attention. "What did you want to discuss in private, Sir?"

Anderson nodded as if she had asked a question. Without moving, he planted his feet on the deck, let the magnetic soles lock him to the floor, and clasped his hands behind his back like a man giving a report. Shepard knew this posture; she held still and paid closer attention because she knew she was about to receive some bad news.

"I won't lie to you, Shepard. Things are looking bad. Nihlus is dead, the beacon was destroyed, and the Geth invading... the Council is going to want answers."

Shepard almost wretched. "The Council can kiss my ass. I won't let them blame me for losing the beacon. I didn't do anything wrong."

"I'll stand behind you and your report, Shepard. You're a damn hero in my book. But that's not why I'm here. It's the other turian down there. Saren."

"The one that shot Nihlus?"

Anderson nodded, "Commander Saren Arturius. He's a Spectre, one of the best. A living legend. But if he's working with the Geth, it means he's gone rogue. A rogue Spectre is trouble enough, but Saren is especially dangerous. And he hates humans in particular."

"Why? What'd we ever do to him?"

"He thinks we're growing too fast, taking over the galaxy. Alot of aliens think that way. Most of them don't do anything about it. But judging by your report, Saren's taking some kind of stand, and he's allied himself with the Geth. The beacon on Eden Prime might have just been a trigger... maybe he was afraid it would give humans an even bigger advantage that he couldn't afford to let us have?"

"The beacon couldn't have been their main objective," Shepard said, "They left without it, after all."

Anderson paused, considering this. "You were there just before the beacon self-destructed. Do you remember anything? Any clue that might tell us what Saren was after?"

Shepard pushed off from the ceiling and pressed her feet down to the deck. Her bare feet met cold steel and she found a restraint loop next to the bed without thinking about it. "Just before I lost consciousness, I had some kind of... vision."

"A vision?" Anderson stepped closer, "A vision of what?"

"I saw synthetics. Geth, maybe. Slaughtering people. Butchering them. I can't be sure, but I think it was a warning."

Anderson frowned, "We need to report this to the Council, Shepard."'

"Hah... what are we gonna tell them? That I had a bad dream?"

"We don't know what information was stored in that beacon. Lost Prothean technology? A map to their home planet? Whatever it was, I'd bet my pension that Saren extracted it before you got there."

"And left it parked next to a thanix device," Shepard folded her arms, "Suppose that's all he was interested in and the Geth just happened to be going his way?"

"No. I know Saren. I know his reputation and his politics. He believes humans are a blight on the rest of the galaxy. This attack was an act of war!"

"If he's that dangerous, we'll find a way to take him down..."

"It's not that easy. As a Spectre, Saren can go anywhere, do almost anything. He has political and corporate connections to merc bands, rogue states, pirate crews, you name it. That's why we need the Council on our side."

Shepard straightening against the foot loop, "So we prove Saren's gone rogue and the Council will revoke his Spectre status."

Anderson nodded. "I'll contact the ambassador and see if he can get us an audience with the Council. C-Sec already has a dock reserved for us when we put in to the Citadel."

An image danced through Commander Shepard's mind. She imagined a hazy grey star field, like an overcast evening in London, with a large cylindrical space station bobbing around int he middle of it all. She'd never seen the Citadel in person before, and the best photographs she'd seen had all been technical graphics showing the distribution of its components. She knew it was large and modular with a smaller central hub, but for some reason this conjured up images of an old 21st century orbital with pressure hulls linked to a cross-shaped hub... "Haven't you ever thought it strange," she asked offhand, "That the representatives of the three most powerful races in the galaxy choose to run their combined empires from a tiny little room in a rusty old space station in the middle of nowhere?"

Anderson was quiet for a moment, staring at her. Then he smiled, a look that was at once a combination of nostalgia and parental amusement. "You'll understand when you see it," Anderson said, and left it at that as he turned to leave.


	18. Chapter 17

**17 - SSV Normandy: July 7th, 2183**

Much had been written over the last two thousand years on the political and military significance of the mass relays and the star systems in which they could be found. In an otherwise vast and infinite galaxy, the mass relays provided convenient choke points through which hostile vessels had to pass in order to access new regions of space. Accordingly, the relay systems were often host to military headquarters, key industries and interplanetary seats of power, acting as rulers, protectors and gatekeepers for the dozens of not hundreds of nearby star systems throughout the adjacent star clusters. That strategic importance overshadows all other considerations, overrides tradition or nostalgia or the entrenched elitism of old wealth. It is the reason why the headquarters of the Systems alliance is in the Arcturus System and not, as one might expect, in the Sol System near the birthplace of humanity.

Of the six mass relays known to humans in the Arcturus system, four of them had been reactivated by the time the Alliance made first bloody contact with the Turian Hierarchy and, through them, the Citadel Accords. It was the intervention of the Citadel Council that had brought the so-called "First Contact War" to an end and returned the colony of Shanxi to its original human owners, forced the Turian Heirarchy to pay reparations for the lost lives and property damage, and openly affirmed - to the chagrin of just about everyone - the Alliance's right to defend its citizens (though not, strictly speaking, the planets they lived on) from hostile action.

The cost of all this had been humanity's agreeing to ratify and abide by the Citadel Accords and bring its own code of conduct into line with over a thousand years of established interstellar law. Most of the new regulations were already consistent with both United Nations and Alliance bylaws, but the few exceptions eventually raised eyebrows in the delegation that later came to be known as the Alliance Parliament. The restrictions on genetic engineering had been the most sensible, since they fell in line with some of humanity's age-old scientific taboos. The ban on AI research, on the other hand, had been a true head-scratcher, since most human experts considered the difference between artificial intelligence and virtual intelligence to be little more than semantics. The ban on the use of atomic or thermonuclear weapons in atmospheric environments was another easy one, as were the prohibitions of slavery, various forms of vampirism, and the deliberate discrimination against persons wearing environmental suits (the latter two had, for obvious reasons, never been human rights issues prior to contact with the Elcor and the Volus, respectively).

It was the prohibition on the activation of dormant mass relays, however, that had come down as a major sticking point in the process. Human expansion had proceeded as fast as it had primarily because of their ignorance of that prohibition; activating dormant relays had allowed them to access systems that no other race had ever visited before, and gave them access to resources that, after two thousand years of exploitation by other species, would have been depleted long ago. Over a dozen star clusters had been opened to colonization by the time humans first arrived in the Aethon Cluster, and three more - the Shadow Sea, the Kepler Verge and the Nubian Expanse - were accessed for first less than a month before the outbreak of hostilities with the turians. A nationalist faction of the Alliance Parliament had pushed for rejection of the accords, arguing that banning relay activation would bring an end to human expansion and was intended purely to ensure the dominance of the Citadel races. This view turned out to be fairly popular, and it might have been enough to sway the Parliament to reject the accords outright, until at the eleventh hour the Asari delegation agreed to supervise the reactivation of seven previously unmapped relays, beginning with previously dormant Arcturus Number Five.

That relay was now eight hundred kilometers away from SSV Normandy, glowing brightly and invitingly as the ship drifted serenely towards it. Humans had taken to calling it the Boltzman Relay, the Widow Relay, the Serpent Relay, and in popularly in recent years, the Citadel Relay. Whatever they called it, no one had forgotten what it represented. Politically, it had been a promise that human expansion could continue, that connecting the relay networks to known systems would be allowed to proceed unhindered, and connecting to unknown systems could still proceed under the Citadel's careful and painstaking supervision. Symbolically, it was the symbol of humanity's acceptance onto the galactic stage, the recognition of their achievements and their potential. But in purely practical terms, the Citadel Relay was literally mankind's direct link to galactic society: the thirty eight thousand four hundred light-year hyperluminal jump directly to the heart of the Serpent Nebula.

Normandy was just completing its braking maneuver when Commander Shepard arrived on the bridge, still shaking off the effects of a three-month hibernation. Lieutenant Moreau was moving his hands through program displays, adjusting figures and shuffling calculations like a sorcerer casting an enchantment. He didn't need to say it, just swept his hand across his screen and started the next phase of the approach as the Normandy flipped end-for-end, nose-first again on its flight path. "Relay is hot, people," Lieutenant Moreau announced, "Approach vector acquired..."

Doctor Chakwas was already on the bridge when Shepard arrived, watching the stars move through the overhead viewport. Private Crosby was in the tracking station on Joker's right hand now, with Navigator Presley still in the CIC, working through orbital calculations for post-transit flight for Joker's next move. Shepard had nothing left to do but wait and think. Doctor Chakwas, evidently, had even less. "Before I forget, Commander... I did complete the autopsy on Agent Nihlus before we went down for stasis. Cause of death was as you recorded: a single gunshot wound to the back of the head. Damage suggests a high-density, low-velocity weapon. Probably a pistol or a shotgun slug."

"Consistent with the witness statement, at least."

"Indeed. But what's even more curious is the state of Nihlus' omni-tool. All his data and files were erased from it after he was killed. Not many people would know how to do that."

"Thank you, Doctor," Shepard nodded. It was more evidence to show to the Citadel Council, whatever they eventually made of it, "Nice catch too."

"Actually, it was Lieutenant Alenko who discovered the omni-tool data. At the time, I was too busy trying to unscramble your brains."

"Alenko did? Interesting..." It dawned on Commander Shepard that other than the man's admittedly impressive resume - the first human biotic to join the Alliance Navy, and so far the only one with an officer's commission - she didn't actually know much about Lieutenant Alenko. He'd only come aboard the Normandy as a last-minute replacement for the ship's previous biotic specialist, who had either killed himself or allowed himself to be killed (no one was sure which) in the presence of an underage prostitute in Vancouver's red light district. The missing sergeant had been known for the longest time to be a bit eccentric with a lot of skeletons in his closet, but if Alenko had a similarly checkered past, his service record contained no hint of it. "Hey Doc," Shepard leaned closer to her, "How well do you know Lieutenant Alenko?"

"All stations secure for transport," Joker announced. He began to turn the ship to adjust their heading, and the relay loomed even larger ahead of them.

"I've never worked with him before this mission, but he has an impressive service record. Over a dozen special commendations. Tends to keep to himself, though. Maybe because of the headaches. It's not easy being an L2."

Shepard shifted her weight, "What does that have to do with it?"

"Well, most biotics now use the new L3 implants. Lieutenant Alenko was wired with the old L2 configurations. They're known to have complications."

"What kind of complications?"

"Severe mental disabilities, insanity, crippling physical pain. There's a long list of horrific side effects. Kaiden's lucky. He just gets migraines."

"The board is green," Joker announced, "Beginning approach. Thirty seconds to transit." A low hum vibrated through the hull as the engines fired again. Shepard thought she felt a slight drift towards the front of the ship, but checking the footing of her mag boots she found she still hadn't moved. "What's our vector after the jump?" she asked, not really expecting an answer."

But Joker was already ahead of her. "The relay's on the near side now, just about two million kiometers. So it'll be about eighty minutes if we don't dog it on the way. Assuming these ephemerides are up to date." His screen chirped a proximity warning. The Citadel Relay was only a hundred kilometers away now, and he began to adjust their course to bring the ship between the relay arms at the right angle and the right trajectory to hit the neighboring relay forty thousand light years away. "Final approach, people," Joker announced on the intercom, "FTL transit in five... four... three... two... one..."

As before, a flickering aurora danced over the ship's hull as the relay began to discharge its energies into the ship. Normandy shuddered briefly, and then the universe exploded all around them into a vibrant swirl of colors, and patterns. All the radiation and energy of the entire universe compressed down into the visible spectrum for a handful of seconds around them...

Shepard felt her stomach climb up the inside of her ribcage, circle the entire ship three times, and then finally drop into a pool around her ankles. If she hadn't been bolted to the deck in zero gravity, standing would have been impossible. To her right, Doctor Chakwas had already fainted, her eyes closed and her arms floating limply in front of her with only her mag boots to keep her upright, and to her left, Gunnery Chief Williams was rubbing her temples as if she was trying to get her ears to pop. "How do you guys get used to this all the time?" she asked.

From the monitoring station, Private Crosby said, "We don't."

"System checks... all green. Inertial drift, twenty two hundred k."

"Twenty two?" Shepard clicked her tongue, "You're slipping, Joker."

"Hey, it's this crazy nebula. What're you gonna do?"

Looking through the overhead viewports, Shepard got her first look at the nebula herself, the blueish haze of charged particles spread out around them as far as they could see, barely obscuring the stars beyond. The field was shifting already as Lieutenant Moreau turned the ship and brought up the main engines again; accelerating at seven gravities, the flight to the citadel would take a little over an hour now, although it wouldn't be visible to the naked eye until much later than that.

"Plotting new vectors," Moreau said, "Traffic looks pretty light. Seventy five minutes out from-"

The comm window on the side of Moreau's console flickered with a connection request, and Normandy's computer automatically accepted it. That would make it a priority request, placed by someone with much higher authority than anyone else on the ship. "Alliance vessel, this is Citadel Traffic Control. Please verify identification and flight plan."

Moreau tapped the circular icon and answered, "This is the Systems Alliance Space Vessel, Stealth Reconnaissance One. Callsign 'Normandy.' Docking authorization delta papa one one five eight five, sierra alpha november."

A momentary pause, and Shepard found herself looking through the windows, trying to spot the station in the distance. The nebula was still too thick for her to see it from here; the pulsar in the distance was spewing charged particles like a sprinkler, and their incandescence was almost as thick as a fog bank. Of course, in space the thickness was only relative; the gas density was still a hundred times lower than most planets' atmospheres and only seemed as thick as it was because it went on for over a light year in every direction.

"Identity confirmed, Normandy," said the traffic controller, "You're cleared to approach. Transferring you to an Alliance Operator now."

"Copy that, Control. Inbound vector, see you in an hour."

"After we dock," Shepard said, "wait fifteen minutes before you start your discharge cycle. Ambassador Udina will want to meet us right away."

"Aye, Commander."

Shepard stepped back a bit and turned to Williams, who was still staring out of the viewport at the luminous blue clouds outside. "Did you look at your duty roster?"

Williams nodded, "Yes, Ma'am. Armory and logistics support with Service Chief Postle. I'm a little curious about something, Commander... is Chief Postle a regular member of the crew or a private contractor? I ask, because the duty roster mentions something about buying licenses and royalties paperwork."

Shepard winced, realizing suddenly that it was time for the talk. Everyone who served on Alliance starships had to get it at one point or another, and Williams - normally a groundpounder - would be getting it for the first time. It was the Ground Commander's job to keep fresh grunts up to speed with such matters, but that didn't mean she enjoyed it. It wasn't that it was a difficult subject for her, exactly, but that it had the potential to unveil the political minefield that people like Terra Firma or the Solar Guardians thrived on.

"There's one thing the Alliance does differently than every other species in the galaxy..." Shepard began, "Well, used to do differently. We're starting to transition now, but it's a pain in the ass."

"And what's that, Ma'am?"

"Well, traditionally, Earth militaries handle all their procurement from a centralized source. The home office buys, say, three hundred thousand assault rifles, they issue them to soldiers as needed. If they needed more rifles, they'd put in an order to a manufacturer, who built a hundred thousand more, and so on. Same thing with starships. We needed a new attack ship or a new carrier, we'd put in an order to Toha Heavy Industries and they'd put their shipyards to work on it."

Williams nodded. "I know how logistics works. They... okay, wait..." she thought about this for a moment, "is that not how it works for everyone else?"

"Hell no. The Turians don't just decide to build X number of gunships this year. What happens is, the Admiral of some fleet somewhere will decide he needs another gunship, and he'll send a factory ship to buy raw materials and some hardware and he'll just build one. And while it's under construction, he'll recruit some new crewmembers to run it, or maybe transfer officers from his own command. Their entire fleet, all their ships, all their weapons, they're all manufactured in the field. It's part of the reason they're designed the way they are: they all look the same, all their parts are interchangeable and standardized. And before you ask, yes, the Normandy was basically built the same way."

"This ship?" Williams looked around, furrowing her brow, "This was built in the field?"

"Turian factory ship over Themus," Shepard nodded, "It was really something to see, too. Anyway, here's how it works: The Alliance's Joint Operations Budget is capped at sixty five billion credits per year. Fifth Fleet gets a tenth of that, six point five billion, and each flotilla gets a tenth of that. We're in the Sixty Third Flotilla, so SSV Cairo, our command ship, gets about half that, the other half is divided up between the Normandy, the Tarawa, the Alamo an the Albion, so about seventy million credits each. That seventy million credits," Shepard stared into her for a long moment, making sure the weight of the number was pressing down on her before adding, "That's your responsibility."

Williams flinched, "Mine, Commander?"

"Yours and Chief Postle. Repairs to the ship, repairs to the Makos, all of our weapons, armor, equipment, we pay for all of that out of pocket, and that pocket has seventy million credits in it. We can do the work ourselves, most of the time. Your omni-tool can make most small items, and the machine shop in the crew deck can make heavy equipment. Ask Postle about that. But the omni-gel and heavy metals, that's all on you. And we have to buy schematics for new hardware and upgrades, we pay for that too. Seventy million may seem like a lot, but believe me, it adds up fast."

Just for a moment, Williams' eyes glazed over as the enormity of her new assignment came down around her. "That seems... I don't know... wrong."

Shepard smiled. Wrong she could deal with. Wrong just offended people's expectations about how the world was supposed to work. Once, she'd had this talk with a marine who had insisted that borrowing Turian procedures for anything was tantamount to treason and threatened to have the entire crew court-martialed the next time they pulled into port. Private Jenkins had been that man's replacement. "It's how the Citadel races have been operating for two thousand years," Shepard shrugged, embracing the sense of relief, "The Terminus Systems, even longer than that. It's the only way you can operate in space, really."

"What about the Batarians? They keep a centralized procurement system."

"You're right, they do. How's that workin' out for them, again?"

Williams chuckled, sharing the joke. If the First Contact War brought humanity onto the galaxy's stage, the war with the Batarians - known to the rest of the galaxy as the Skyllian Blitz - had earned them the spotlight. It had already entered the history books as one of the most one-sided military conflicts ever recorded, which, for a history spanning back almost three thousand and covering conflicts on twelve hundred planets, was really saying something.

Shepard batted her on the shoulder, smiling warmly. "Anyway, we're probably better off. You've seen what we're up against, you know what their capabilities are, and you can get us what we need when we need it."

"Yes, Ma'am... I just... I didn't realize I was going to have such big shoes to fill..." she paused, frowned, and lowered her voice softly, "I mean, I realize Private Jenkins was a valuable member of your crew..."

Shepard felt a pulse of something unidentifiable deep down in her being. Some reflex or instinct she didn't immediately recognize, as if someone had struck a match underneath her soul. "When your number comes up, it's over," she said, shrugging, "His did."

Joker glanced back at this, eyebrow raised in surprise, "Well, damn..."

"That's... grim..." Williams folded her arms, breathing slowly, "I guess I shouldn't be surprised though. Not after Akuze. That must have been hell."

"Akuze?" That was the most horrible thing she had ever experienced. The screams of her unit - her friends - still echoed in her nightmares, the sounds of their cries as the alien predators tore them apart and dragged them, screaming, deep underground to finish eating them alive, armor and all. She had told herself every day since then that her military career was over, that she would walk away from all of this and never come back. Just one more tour, and it would all be behind her; one more assignment, and she could find a life that didn't every minute remind her of what she had barely lived through... "That was exhilarating," she heard herself say, and suddenly felt a smile spread across her lips. A smile that was as genuine as the feeling growing inside, because now that she thought about Akuze... "Hell of an adventure."

Williams, instinctively, took a small step back. "With respect, Commander... I'm glad you're on our side."

Shepard turned her attention inward, but the feeling was gone. It had been there only for a moment, like a funny aftertaste in an otherwise familiar meal. She couldn't remember feeling anything about Akuze other than terror and dread and a sense of incalculable loss. But something else inside of her took that memory and danced with it.

It wasn't unwelcome. Just unexpected.

"Coming up on midpoint," Moreau said, "All hands, brace for maneuvers."

Shepard grabbed onto an overhead railing, as did a newly-conscious Doctor Chakwas next to her. Williams held onto a handlebar on the wall, and Lieutenant Alenko stopped cold in the flight deck corridor and braced himself between the floor and the ceiling.

Lieutenant Moreau swung his hands through a series of dialogs on his holographic consoles, and a soft alarm sounded as a last warning. Normandy's main engines may have been largely inertialess, but the ship itself was not; as soon as the sound of the engines fade out, attitude thrusters on the bow and the stern fired together and the Normandy flipped end-to-end in just a little under five seconds. The crew deck and the CIC were close enough to the ship's center of gravity that anyone or anything wasn't securely held down would be bounced off the walls and carom around the compartment like a billiard ball; the bridge and the engine room, however, were far enough off center that the maneuver threw everything towards the bulkheads, as if the ship had suddenly gone into a dive.

When the thrusters stopped the turn, Normandy had turned its main engines into its direction of travel. Moreau lit the drives again, thirty gravities through the entire ship, slowly reducing their speed now for the second half of their flight. Every bit of acceleration they'd gained since leaving the relay now had to be canceled out, or else Normandy would arrive at its docking bay still traveling at supersonic speeds.

"Retrofire in progress," Moreau said, "Hey Commander, I've got radar contact, coming up to starboard. Looks like another ship burning retrograde with us."

Which meant another ship arriving at the Citadel at the same time they were. Shepard stayed put, but Williams and Alenko went to the starboard window and looked out into the nebula, scanning for the distant, faint spec that would have been the other vessel.

What they saw was neither distant nor faint. As they approached it, it kept getting bigger and bigger until it almost filled the sky. "Look at the size of that thing..." Williams gasped, leaning over to get a better angle.

"The Destiny Ascension," Alenko said, "Flagship of the Citadel fleet. Largest military vessel ever constructed."

And it looked it. The Asari dreadnaught was designed like a giant cross, with four independent hulls - each one almost two kilometers long and built like a skyscraper - jutting out from a hollow, barrel-shaped central core. That core glowed bright blue as if its inner walls were on fire, the telltale signs of an enormous mass effect engine in action.

"Well, size isn't everything," Moreau said, an edge in his voice.

Williams grinned, "Why so touchy, Joker? Starship envy?"

"I'm just saying. You need firepower too. And a ship that size has only got, what, sixty mass accelerators, all cruiser-class? Plus two or three thousand heavy missiles..."

"More firepower than the entire Fifth Fleet," Shepard said, "And kinetic barriers to match."

"Plus," Alenko added, "Asari warships use their drive cores as weapons. When it's not propelling the ship, they can use it s a gravity cannon."

"Why is it hollow in the center?" Williams asked.

"That's the drive core," Moreau said, "That big empty space? It's all one giant eezo coil."

"God! Look at that monster! You could fit a dozen attack ships inside it!"

"That would be fun to try," Moreau said, grinning faintly.

The Asari behemoth was falling away to the distance now, still completing its braking maneuver. Unlike Normandy, it hadn't needed to turn around to slow itself down; its main drive could be fired in either direction, saving the need for the massive starship to actually turn around to decelerate. "Good thing it's on our side," Alenko said, pushing back from the window.

More ships slipped past them as they fell towards the citadel, more variety of vessels than Commander Shepard had ever seen. Two Asari battleships, smaller versions of the Destiny Ascension, passed them on the way out, along with a half dozen even smaller vessels that were probably Turian gunships. Civilian vessels appeared too, more distant and more distributed, of all designs and shapes and sizes. The human-based designs stood out for being modular and primitive-looking, most being combinations of pressurized compartments mated to drive sections along common hubs. Most of these civilian vessels carried huge propellant tanks clustered around fusion reactors and mass accelerator systems to drive reaction mass like an ordinary rocket booster. Smaller craft came into view eventually: T-12 Sky cars and UT-47 shuttles. Something the size of a school bus with a stubby delta wing and a single, bell-shaped rocket nozzle shot past them twenty kilometers to port, and Shepard realized they had just passed a human space shuttle that was at least a hundred and fifty years old.

Sooner or later, everyone came to the Citadel.

Moreau cut the main drive and sounded the maneuver warning again. Alenko and Williams grabbed onto handlebars while Doctor Chakwas pressed herself into an acceleration seat on the side of the bridge. The turn was more gradual this time, and when it completed, the station itself yawned in front of them like a gigantic mechanical flower in bloom. Five long arms, each forty kilometers long and thirteen wide, reached out from the face of a central ring, parallel to each other like an open cylinder. City lights burned orange and red and green on the inside face of the arms, sprawling along their entire length and width. They and the ring they were attached to rotated slowly around the same axis, producing centrifugal gravity that at the lowest point was slightly higher than Earth's.

Commander Shepard wasn't sure what she'd expected to see, but this certainly wasn't it. The Destiny Ascension had seemed impossibly huge, but the Citadel made the dreadnought look like a child's toy.

Lieutenant Moreau tapped the priority connection with his thumb and used the maneuvering thrusters to carefully adjust their heading. "Alliance Tower, this is SSV Normandy on approach, requesting permission to land at bay D22."

"Normandy, you have clearance. Maintain safe approach velocity."

"Copy that, tower. Vectoring in." Their relative velocity was already much lower than it had been before; Normandy was now passing over the long arms of the station like an airplane flying over a vast sprawling city. The Citadel spun slowly around them against the backdrop of the widow nebula as they approached, and then, gradually, the Citadel became still, and the nebula began to spin. "Matched rotational velocity," Moreau said, and then added on the intercom, "All sections, prepare for gravity." He tapped the thruster controls, and in an instant Shepard felt herself being gently pushed down to the floor against the soles of her mag boots. A dozen soft clicking and tapping sounds echoed through the bridge and the corridor behind it as a galaxy's worth of random objects fell out of the air and clattered to the deck plating and bulkheads beneath them.

The central ring of the Citadel grew in in Joker's monitor and in the windows as well. Five hundred meters thick and seven kilometers in diameter, that ring was, all by itself, larger than most Alliance space stations. The dull grey metallic skin had an reflective, mother-of-pearl color that caught the eye in odd ways, made all the more obvious by the scattering of small structures built into the sides of it that were clearly made of some other material altogether. Moreau was zeroing in on one of those structures, a largish box attached to the side of the ring with the number "21 - 22" painted on the top of it in three-story-high Asari lettering. His navigational display showed a flight path that ended near the midpoint of that box, to the right of a long gantry with the letter "D" painted on its end. He fired the braking thrusters, reducing their velocity even more, then a few final adjustments as the Normandy slid into place.

The landing thrusters fought the pull of spin gravity, and then fought the turbulence of air as the ship passed through the dock's air shield. A last pulse of the braking thrusters brought the ship to a stop, and a set of huge arms swing into position and attached magnetic grapples to the hull, holding the ship in place. Moreau let the engines idle, then cut power. Normandy sagged in its moorings, and then went still.

"Soft dock," he announced, and waited for the boarding ramp to extend, "Connecting umbilicals..."

"Feel that gravity," Alenko said, tapping his feet, "Must be about one half gee."

"One third," said Captain Anderson, who'd managed to come through the forward corridor completely unnoticed. With his feet on the ground he moved less like a self-propelled thundercloud and more like a mountain on giant tank treads: just massive presence in unstoppable motion.

Shepard noticed the Captain was wearing his dress navy blue dress uniform instead of the duty uniform he usually wore on the ship. it occurred to her that she should have asked what the expectation was for attire on the Citadel, but it was too late to ask now. "Has Doctor Chakwas given you the new fitness guidelines?" he asked.

Commander Shepard nodded. "Yes, Captain."

"Alright, come on. Ambassador Udina will want to meet with us right away."

"What's the security situation on the Citadel?" Williams asked, "Are we allowed side-arms and armor?"

"You can bring defensive equipment only. Omni-tools, biotic amps. No weapons allowed past the security checkpoint."

"In other words only criminals are allowed to carry weapons on the Citadel."

"Just criminals, C-Sec and Spectres." Anderson hit tapped the airlock controls and the door hissed open for him, "If you're caught in the wards with an unauthorized weapon, they ban you from the station for life. If you're found with a weapon on the Presidium, you'll be killed on sight."

Alenko whistled as he stepped into the airlock with the Captain and the others. "That seems a little harsh, doesn't it?"

"There's a _reason_ we call this place 'the Citadel,' Lieutenant."


	19. Chapter 18

**18 - Pilgrimage: Now All I Need is a Buyer**

"MV Majesty, this is Medina Garage, you are authorized to dock at Platform One Four."

"Copy that, Medina. Good to be back." Captain Willem closed the channel and then reclined back in his acceleration seat, staring up through the slanted viewport in the ceiling of the bridge. Reclined like this, he was effectively laying with his back to the ship's drive, wearing the entire ship like a gigantic backpack.

The Citadel turned in space in front of him, its ward arms reaching for the Majesty like a like a giant grasping hand. He heard the pulse of control jets through the hull and knew that Emerson - the high-functioning alcoholic who fancied himself a pilot - was starting to roll the ship to match the Citadel's spin. He buried a protest to the pilot, then buried the urge to reprimand him openly; with the navigation system working, Emerson was ignoring his implicit directive to let the computer handle automatic docking from now on.

On the other hand, the computer had only recently been repaired by the fucking Quarian...

Tali'Zorah nar Raya was sitting at the Systems station next to his, quietly watching status displays for the ship's engines, thrusters and sensors. In its previous life as an Alliance frigate, this had been the damage control station for the entire ship. What used to be the fire control station sat empty and unused behind her. All of its fuses pulled out so it wouldn't function at all. Just as a... precaution.

Though she'd done her job as efficiently as ever, Tali'Zorah hadn't said much since they hit the relay from Eden Prime. She'd been thorough and efficient in helping them to escape from the battle zone, and she'd been even more efficient during the transit from Utopia to Arcturus. Willem had assumed she'd seen something disturbing on the planet, but he didn't want to pry and figured she would open up to him eventually. It wasn't until they were just an hour from the Capitol Relay that the first security bulletin from the Alliance finally explained her silence, but by then he'd mentioned her too many times in his flight logs to risk tossing her out of an airlock.

He hadn't actually talked it over with the crew, but he could see it in the room the way they avoided looking at her without actually looking away. They knew the truth, as sure as they knew that water was wet. There was only one thing on Eden Prime that the Geth could possibly have been after.

The ship's rotation matched the Citadel's at last, and Emerson tilted the ship along its rotating axis until its fusion drives were pointed at one of the ward arms, rotating with it. The "descent" towards Tayseri Ward was tricky, but Emerson had done it on manual a dozen times. Thrusters fired, controlling the ship's orientation, pushing down as well as turning it to match the station's turn. By the time they were close enough to see the landing pad the ship was starting to feel the first suggestion of gravity, and when Willem heard the plasma drives spooling up they were already at half a G.

The final descent was a combination of practice, art, and a little bit of luck. Emerson guided the ship down to the landing pad using the ground-mapping radar that wasn't technically supposed to be used for space stations but worked wonders on the vastness of the Citadel Wards. One hundred meters from landing, Willem reached out to his command console and extended the landing gear, and at fifty meters he powered down the ship's kinetic barriers. Moments later, the Majesty passed through the almost invisible layer of energy that trapped a breathable atmosphere above the ward arms, and seconds later, the hard lurch and crashing sensation of landing legs grounding against the pad.

"Touchdown," Emerson said, and turned the pilot seat backwards to face his captain, "Welcome to the Citadel."

"Let the deck hands know we've landed. And tell them I've already called C-Sec to ask them when they'll be sending the relief coordinators."

"You called C-Sec, boss?"

"No, but by the time you talk to them I will have."

"Right. Gotcha." Emerson pushed out of his chair and then slumped slightly. They'd been in null g a little too long at Arcturus and feeling full gravity again took him a moment to adjust.

Willem also struggled up, stretched, tried to find his ground legs. Spin gravity of the Citadel wasn't quite the same thing as the natural warping of space caused by an assload of stuff being piled together and his inner ear was complaining in all the wrong directions. Despite it all, the feeling was as familiar as it was disorienting. "Damn it's good to be home," he muttered. Then turning to the Ops console began, "So. Tali. Listen, I think there's something we need to talk about..." he turned to her station, but the chair was already empty. He hadn't even seen her get up, much less the sound of the bridge door opening and closing again. She was simply gone, as if she'd never been there in the first place. "Well shit."

Emerson shook his head, grinning sardonically, "Might wanna go through the ship's stores, skipper. See if anything's missing."

Willem nodded, "That's not a bad idea."

******

There were, of course, a few things missing, but nothing Captain Willem would ever notice even if he bothered to check. This was mainly because Willem, like most people, didn't keep very close tabs on the omni-gel stores in the ship's machine shop except when he was using it. If he'd been paying more attention to the right things he would have noticed the slight change in appearance of her exo-suit during the voyage and the addition of two leather bands around her upper chest that helped support the weight of the larger-sized shield power cell she'd installed in her suit. This particular power cell was an Aldrin Labs EVA module that was originally designed for maintenance workers conducting repairs in deep space; it wasn't ideal for combat, but it was touted to provide one-time impact protection against anything smaller than a baseball moving at orbital velocities. It wasn't a proper kinetic barrier like a soldier might have, but it would give her some time to run or dive for cover if someone took a shot at her, and time was all she really needed.

She'd considered using some omni-gel to manufacture a pistol or at least a flash grenade, but she knew that weapons were strictly banned on the Citadel, and she didn't know enough about C-Sec protocols to be able to smuggle one past their security. In fact, she didn't know enough about their protocols to realize that even the barrier cell might have been a problem until the grim-looking Turian officer tugged at the silk scarf covering the cell's casing in the small of her back and asked, "Do you have a permit for that modification?"

Tali'Zorah took a small step back, pulling away from his grasp. The security station was just a long hallway full of sensors and glass windows on either side that seemed to open into offices that were deliberately left empty. It had the feeling of being literally trapped in a bureaucracy. Her nose itched. "Permit? Why would I need a permit for a protective mod?"

The Turian sighed, "Kinetic barriers and ballistic armor are both regulated under Class-B restrictions on the Citadel. That technically includes your exo-suit, by the way."

"I don't understand that. I've been on the Citadel before, but no one asked me for a permit to wear my suit."

"That's what I mean by technically. If we raise an issue about your suit, you'll complain that we're discriminating against alternate atmosphere life forms, and you'll file a complaint to the Sentient Rights Committee, and then by the end of the day I'll have the Volus ambassador stomping around here complaining about how we're discriminating against exo-suit wearers by restricting the use of your suits and blah blah blah. So we don't make an issue with the suits. But the shield mod, you need a permit for."

"How do I even get a permit?" she asked, exasperated.

"You don't. Not without residency papers, which you clearly don't have. Visitors aren't allowed Class-B or higher equipment without a permit."

Tali'Zorah sighed, clapped her hand on the side of her helmet in frustration. "For the sake of argument. How much would it cost in processing fees if I were to buy a permit right here from you?"

The Turian grinned, "I'm a lot cheaper than the Regulations office. Two thousand credits would probably do it."

Tali'Zorah opened her omni-tool, tapped a quick command, then closed it. The Turian's omni-tool flickered and he checked the display, with an air of practiced nonchalance that Tali'Zorah found instantly reassuring. He wasn't actually picking on her, this was just business.

Once he saw the funds had transferred, the Turian tapped a button on the stand next to him and said, "Welcome to Tayseri Ward."

"Thank you," she said, and stepped through the door into the spaceport terminal.

The place was relatively empty, with just two or three pedestrians roaming around in the spacious lobby. She was tempted to think they had docked here in the middle of the night, except that it was never really "night" on the Citadel anyway. So some sort of strange off-peak hour, then. Probably another concert over at the Dilinaga Hall.

She didn't pause here. There wasn't time for that. She had a lead, however brief, and a window of opportunity that might close any moment. She'd kept to herself on the Majesty because she suspected Captain Willem or his crew knew would try to steal the credit from her, or maybe the prospect of their colony being attacked by aliens just killed off their innocent curiosity that had allowed her to join them in the first place. Either way, she wouldn't miss their company.

She already missed their ship, but that was a small price for what she was about to earn.

The nearest public terminal was just around the corner and down a level from the security station. She logged in using a borrower's account, and the Citadel's communications VI logged her identity and tallied up the complimentary twenty minutes every visitor was allotted before having to pay for communications services. Since Tali currently had about seven hundred credits to her name, this would have to be a very short call.

She hadn't specifically remembered his contact heading, but knowing generally where to find him made it simply to look up. Within minutes she had the connection request and a video link to Doran Gord; the connection sang for a few moments, and when it answered the video showed Doran's exo-suit from an unstable angle. So he'd answered from his omni-tool instead of from his office, which meant he was working. Tali'Zorah hoped the interruption wouldn't make him grouchy. "Hello, Doran Gord. I um... I don't know if you remember me, but a few weeks ago I came to y-"

"Tali'Zorah nar Raya!" Doran said, and took a stuttering hissing breath that she had learned to associate with excitement among the Volus, "I wasn't expecting to see you back on the Citadel so soon! Before you ask, no, there hasn't been any more trouble with those quasar machines. Not even the usual maintenance issues. You are a truly talented mechanic, my dear!"

Tali'Zorah smiled. Doran at least remembered her, which was more than most people she'd worked for could be bothered to do. He'd not only paid her a fare wage for what turned out to be a pretty huge and complex job, but he'd given her a cot in his storage room for six days until she could book passage on a ship heading to the terminus systems. And more to the point... "Thank you, Doran. I haven't forgotten your kindness. If you need any other work, be sure to let me know."

"Of course!" Doran hissed again, "How was Caleston? Were you able to find something suitable for your pilgrimage?"

"Actually, I never made it to Caleston. The ship I chartered to take me there got diverted and I had to rebook. I only got as far as... Well, Eden Prime."

Doran went still, the lenses on his facemask flashing. The words hit him like a blast of warm air and suddenly his body language was very serious. "I am very sorry to hear that, Tali'Zorah. Is there anything I can do for you? I still have some space in my spare office."

"That would be great, actually. I'll only need it for a few days, just long enough to make a few calls. Speaking of which, are you still in touch with that friend of yours? That Shadow Broker agent?"

Doran's head twitched like a nervous tick, or a small animal scratching its ear on his shoulder. "I haven't made any trades lately, but I know who to ask. Why? You have something valuable?" He seemed to think about it for a moment and then twitched again, "Silly question. You came straight here from Eden Prime."

"You don't know that half of it. I've done trades before. Cartographics, mostly. At least, he pays better than Baria Frontiers."

"That's because Baria gets half of their charts from the Shadow Broker. But this is bigger?"

"Much bigger. You know the Geth attack on Eden Prime? I got video on someone I'm pretty sure is their leader. Get this: the guy's a Turian! He's a bareface, and he's got some kind of skeletal deformity! I've got a video record and biometric data, voiceprint, a possible accomplice, even close-range scans of his ship! The whole package!"

"That would be worth a lot!" Doran Gord hissed his growing excitement, "Where are you calling from? The Medina? Okay. Head over to the Silversun Strip. It's over on the other side of the factory district. Go to the Castle Arcade, and you'll find a human woman named Alexis Tannenbaum."

"And this Alexis Tannenbaum is an agent for the Shadow Broker?"

"Yes. She's the one I usually go through, but she only deals with new sellers in person. I'll have to call ahead and arrange the meeting for you."

"That makes sense. She only meets people who've been recommended by clients, so there's less chance of her being compromised."

"Seems a little paranoid to me, but the information trade can be surprisingly dangerous." Doran took a short, hissing breath, "She'll probably charge you a finder's fee, but if your information is good she'll be happy to facilitate the trade."

Tali'Zorah smiled. "That's exactly what I needed! Thank you, Doran Gord!" She closed the connection, turned and walked across the lobby with some extra bounce in her step. She felt like she had one some kind of contest she hadn't even thought she could win, and now she was on her way to collect her reward.

In fact, the Shadow Broker had become the de facto patron saint of Quarian pilgrims. The constant search for things of value positioned them as the perfect agents for the Broker, and many young Quarians had managed to finance their entire journey just by feeding seemingly random observations to the Shadow Broker's network. Tali'Zorah had done the same thing, by first stealing and then selling a draft of the script to the second 'Blasto' movie to a shadow broker agent on Ilium, which in turn had gotten her enough cash to hitchhike her way to Sur'Kesh and then, eventually, to the Citadel.

It was a point of pride for young Quarians to bring something back to the fleet that was inherently valuable, and often enough that required large amounts of cash. She'd seen people bring back crates of suitcases full of element zero, crates of platinum or iridium, small high-performance shuttles and scout craft, or advanced weapon designs (preferably with a full reproduction license purchased or otherwise unlocked). A marine cadet she'd once had a massive crush on had come back from his pilgrimage with nothing but a third-hand, barely operable one-man shuttle, and a huge, ugly-looking weapon he had designed and manufactured himself. Even Tali had felt embarrassed for him, until in a moment of awesomeness that was now legendary among the flotilla, he took that hideous-looking weapon and used it to completely disintegrate the shuttle he'd arrived on. After that, Sergeant Kal'Reegar became the preeminent badass of the Neema. Tali'Zorah had vowed to do even better.

Her suit still had a visitor's map of Tayseri ward in memory. Presuming that it couldn't have changed too much since the last time she was here, she marked her current location on her heads up display and had the computer plot a route to the Silversun Strip. As Doran had said, it was indeed through the Factory District, but the route to get there wasn't as straightforward as she expected. The footpath was a walk almost fifteen kilometers, with a few complex zig-zag paths that took her through awkwardly-positioned pedways that weren't actually meant to be used by anyone with anywhere to go; total transit time, three hours and twenty minutes. The map did list an elevator/tram system that cut through about half the trip, but it still required a seven kilometer walk from the end station and also took her three and a half kilometers out of her way just to get there; total transit time, two hours and forty five minutes.

Grumbling, she walked across the lobby to the little balcony that served as a parking lot for air cars. A small, featureless console standing next to the lot woke up a holographic display as she approached and flashed the animated graphics of the local mass transit air car service. The service, she knew, was free for C-Sec officers, diplomats and military personnel. Residents had to pay a fare, and visitors had to pay double.

"Please input destination," said the faceless VI that lived in the holographic forest of logos and advertising in front of her. Tali'Zorah flashed her omni-tool and, with a flick of her wrist as a command gesture, tossed the file at the VI's buffer. The computer read her destination, calculated the time for the nearest car to arrive and helpfully informed her, "Your vehicle will arrive in eleven minutes. Your non-resident fee will be four hundred and eighty five credits."

Tali'Zorah flashed her omni-tool again and checked her account balance. The ticker told her instantly: 48cr. "Dammit! _What_?! I had over two thousand credits in there! Where the hell did my... oh..." she looked back across the lobby at the big pressure door, behind which the Turian customs agent was probably very much enjoying his bribe money.

"Cancel the ride," Tali'Zorah said to the transit console, "Looks like I'm walking today."


	20. Chapter 19

19 - The Citadel: Diplomacy

Donnell Udina was already an accomplished politician by the time the first Prothean ruins were unearthed on Mars. He had been young enough to embrace the new paradigm when it arrived but old enough to help steer humanity's course into their new, uncharted future. He'd seen the shape of the universe completely change three different times in his life, and each and every time he had done everything in his power to position mankind to take the best possible advantage of their new realities.

His tenure as ambassador to the Citadel was no different. By all accounts, the unprecedented concessions humanity had been allowed so soon after contact had been partially his doing; if he hadn't directly lead the talks and the back-channel deals that made them possible, he had made sure that deals arranged by his peers were carried out to the letter.

Udina was not ruthless, exactly, but he was known to be uncompromising in his pursuit of humanity's interests, a characteristic that had not earned him many friends on the Citadel and had also not done a lot for the Alliance's reputation. Judging by the angry snarl in his voice when Captain Anderson entered his office, that reputation was about to reach an all-time low. "What the hell do you mean 'no action?!' That's four colonies attacked since Eden Prime!"

"Which is regrettable," said the voice of Councilor Spartus in the visage of a translucent Turian in the corner of the room, "Both in terms of the financial and humanitarian cost. It is not, however, a problem for the Citadel, and we cannot become involved." The other two holograms next to him - the Asari and Salarian councilors - both nodded in agreement.

Udina looked as if he was about to shoot fireballs from his eyes and incinerate all three of them. "This is an _outrage_! The council would step in if the Geth were attacking _Turian_ colonies!"

Councilor Valern, the Salarian representative, shifted his weight, "The turians don't build colonies on the borders of the terminus systems, Ambassador."

"The Alliance was well ware of the risks when you went into the Traverse," Added Tevos, the Asari councilor.

Udina stalked forward, "What about Saren? You can't just ignore a rogue Spectre! We demand action!"

Spartus' voice cracked like a burst of gunfire, "You don't get to make 'demands' of the council, Ambassador."

"Citadel Security is investigating your charges against Saren," Tevos added, "We will discuss the C-SEC findings at the hearing, not before." She reached for something offscreen, and her holographic avatar disappeared. Valern and Spartus did the same moments later, leaving the Ambassador alone with his rage and his three slightly nonplussed visitors.

Udina took a deep breath, rubbed his eyes tiredly, muttered something inaudible. Then he came back to himself and seemed to notice for the first time that anyone else was in the room with him. "Captain Anderson," and looking past him at the three people in Alliance duty uniforms, added, "I see you brought half your crew with you."

"Just the ground team from Eden Prime," Anderson said, "In case you had any questions."

"I have the mission reports. I assume they're accurate?"

"They _are_. It sounds like you convinced the Council to give us an audience."

Udina nodded, "They are not happy about it. Saren is their top agent. They don't like him being accused of treason."

Commander Shepard felt a pulse of anger in the pit of her stomach. "Saren's a threat to every human colony out there! He needs to be stopped! The Council has to listen to us!"

"Settle down, Commander. You've already done more than enough to jeopardize our candidacy for the Spectres. The mission on Eden Prime was your chance to prove you could get the job done. Instead, Nihlus ended up dead and the Beacon was destroyed!"

Anderson stepped forward before Shepard could answer, "Both of which were Saren's doing, not Commander Shepard's."

"Then we'd better hope the C-Sec investigation turns up evidence to support our accusations. Otherwise the council might use this as an excuse to keep _you_ out of the Spectres."

Shepard tried to parse that comment for meaning, but Udina proved surprisingly hard to read. She couldn't actually tell if he was unhappy with her performance of the mission, or was simply unhappy that the mission had happened at all, or was concerned about how others might interpret the situation. In any case, she got the impression that he was more annoyed by the impact on his agenda than it had on anyone else. It was like a man finding out about his wife's murder becoming upset that he would have to do his own laundry from now on.

"Come with me, Captain," Udina said, "I want to go over a few things before the hearing. Shepard, you and the others can meet us at the Citadel tower, top level, first thing tomorrow morning. I'll make sure you have clearance to get in."

Ambassador Udina lead Captain Anderson to a small, closed-off corner of his office divided by a private partition and a desk dominated by a larger-than-neccesary computer terminal. Shepard and Alenko watched them go before glancing back and forth between each other, wondering if they were actually dismissed or simply expected to wait here until tomorrow. Williams chimed in with the unspoken thought for all of them: "And that's why I hate politicians."

Alenko chuckled, and Shepard shrugged apologetically. "Let's wander around for a bit. Take in the sights."

"Do they really want us wandering around out here like a bunch of tourists? Won't that get us into trouble?"

Shepard turned and faced him, staring him down. Alenko suddenly got the impression he was being inspected and stood at attention, smoothing a wrinkle in his uniform. "Lieutenant Alenko, how many people live on this station?"

"How many, Commander? I assume... well... actually, Ma'am, I have no idea."

"Neither do I." Shepard looked at Alenko and Williams both, "I don't know what _kind_ of people live here either. Doesn't it seem weird to you that I'm being vetted for a position of responsibility over everyone living here and I have no idea who any of these people are?"

Alenko's face darkened, and he looked away without answering.

"I just assumed that if they picked you for the Spectres, you would have turned the job down," Williams said, "I mean, it's not like you could take it. You're an Alliance soldier, you don't even work for the Citadel."

"We had to ratify the Farixen Amendment of the Citadel Accords to be eligible for an embassy here," Shepard said. Several hours of intense cramming after Eden Prime was finally starting to come in handy. "And the Amendment requires us make some of our military equipment and personnel available to the Citadel whenever they need it."

"And of course, they're the only ones who get to decide when it's needed," Williams growled.

"Apparently."

"It's a high stakes game out here," Alenko added, "Gotta ante in if you want to play."

Williams frowned, "I'm just not comfortable with the idea that the Alliance might have some of its soldiers taking orders from aliens."

"Neither were the Batarians," Shepard said.

"You know, that example doesn't apply to _everything_."

"No, Chief, it just applies to people who think small and cling to the past instead of stopping to look at the big picture. Look out there," she walked to the edge of the balcony ringing the end of the Ambassador's office, looking out over the vast, curved landscape of the presidium. The curve of the ring was sharp enough that you could see the landscape bend upwards and disappear behind the ceiling tens of kilometers away in either direction. Air cars whistled and hummed as they flew overhead, and voices and footsteps softly echoed from the ground ten stories below them on pedestrian walkways and foot bridges. The ring itself was a landscape divided; a kind of lake or river almost a hundred meters wide ran the entire circumference of the ring, so that the walkways, stores, shops and buildings were all arranged as if on the banks of an infinite river. The ring alone was bigger than the Alliance's main headquarters at Arcturus Station, and that facility was home to over forty five thousand people.

"All the major species of the galaxy come through here," Shepard said, "They talk, they trade, they make alliances. This place is the hub of activity for over half the galaxy. Having access to the Citadel means opportunities we would _never_ have on our own."

"Are those opportunities really worth compromising our values, Commander?"

"I honestly don't know. Which is why I'm gonna go out there and wander around until I find out." And Shepard did exactly this, marching through the door to Udina's office with the carelessness of someone who was about to run down to the corner store for a candy bar.

They'd seen much of the embassy on the way in here, of course. Anderson had led them through it with his usual purposefulness, but there had been time enough to glance around and take in the sights all the way from the docking bay. The lobby on the fourth floor - where Udina's office resided - was full of people of every species you could think of, gathered together in loose knots of conversation, arguments or mutual admiration. An information desk with two Asari clerks and something that looked like a cross between a human and an iguana served three different lines of patrons who looked both impatient and relieved to even make it this far. Udina's office was at the end of a hallway past this desk, across from a door that, when Shepard came close to it, sent her a very powerful electronic warning that the room was off limits to anyone but Spectres.

The section of the station known collectively as The Embassies dominated an entire block of the Presidium ring's outer wall, but most of the offices of various ambassadors were collected on the second, third and fourth floors. The Fifth Floor technically held the office of the Batarian and Yahg ambassadors, but it had been ten years since the Batarians withdrew their ambassador to the Citadel and at least as long since the Yahg responded to the officer of diplomatic contact by killing and eating the Salarian team sent to contact them. Calling it an 'Embassy' was really a mistranslation, Shepard realized. The human term implied a certain amount of sovereignty by the visiting nation on a pre-determined amount of land. The Citadel afforded no such concessions, nor were Ambassadors entitled to anything resembling diplomatic immunity. If anything, the place was really just a huge inter-species expo and convention that never closed down.

Not knowing where to go first, Shepard stopped and people-watched for a moment, leaning against one of the floor-to-ceiling windows of the lobby to stay out of the way. The view of the Presidium was enough of a draw on its own - the curved, rolled-up landscape and its endless water way spanning both directions - but the mix of species in the lobby was a sight unto itself. The few Turians in the room she recognized for what they were, if not exactly who; only one seemed to be wearing anything that might pass for a military uniform, the others were all wearing colorful robes or jumpsuits that were probably civilian clothes. There were a pair of Asari milling around in stylish leather dresses engaged in lively conversation with a short round creature in a full-body environment suit.

Something that looked like a huge pink jellyfish was floating off to a corner somewhere, pulling itself along with its tentacles; Shepard didn't need to be an expert in inter-species behavior to know the poor thing was lost. This seemed as good a place to start as any, so she left her perch by the window and approached it carefully while Alenko and Williams watched and wondered. "Excuse me," she said, addressing the pink floating creature directly as she could, "Are you doing alright? You seem a little disoriented."

The jellyfish paused, and turned the pointier part of its body towards her. Parts of it flickered with bioluminescence and it began to wave two of its tentacles near the floor. A moment later, a deep, watery voice flowed out of a small round device under its belly that she hadn't noticed before as its translation software rendered what the thing must have assumed was a good approximation of a human voice. _"Yes. This one apologizes for its lack of coordination. This one is new to the Citadel and does not yet know its way around."_

Shepard smiled, "Same here. Where are you trying to go? Maybe I can help you find it."

The creature flickered again, and its translator said, _"This one is looking for the Turian named Joram Talid. This one was lead to believe that Mister Talid intended to meet it at the Dark Star Lounge before the midday office shift was set to begin. This one has examined Presidium directories, and cannot locate the establishment in question."_

"Dark Star Lounge on the Presidium?" Shepard moved to an information terminal a few meters to her left and linked herself into the network. Through her omnitool, she entered the name 'Dark Star Lounge' into the search bar, and the system gave her 'No results' message. On a hunch, she widened her search to include areas outside the Presidium, and was immediately interrupted as the terminal shut itself down and a life-sized translucent hologram of a naked Asari woman appeared in front of her.

"Greetings, and welcome to the Presidium," said the hologram in a synthesized voice, "My name is Avina, and I am pleased to be your virtual guide through this level of the Citadel space station."

Shepard took a small step back, and glanced at the floating jellyfish creature who seemed equally surprised. As did Williams and Alenko, moving up next to her to join the multi-species huddle. "What does that mean?" Shepard asked, not knowing what else to say.

"I am a fully interactive virtual intelligence, programmed to provide spontaneous guidance at pre-determined locations of interest throughout the Citadel. I may also be contacted through any of the Citadel VI terminals, should you require assistance."

On the off chance that this machine worked the way it was suggesting it did, Shepard asked, "This... um... my friend here... he's looking for a place called the Dark Star Lounge."

The hologram answered instantly, "The Dark Star Lounge is a licensed establishment on the twenty sixth floor of the Jonda Center, located at the corner of Eighty Seventh and Rannoch in Zakera Ward. If you would like to arrange transportation to that location, you may charter a rapid transit vehicle at the kiosk near the ground floor or the rooftop of this building. Automatic navigation and landing are available for passengers who lack proper piloting credentials."

The jellyfish creature flickered happily and its translator said, _"This one is very grateful for the human's help. This one will be on its way now."_ It waved its tentacles and floated away, heading briefly in the direction of an elevator before simply floating over the rail towards the open-air atrium and descending down to the ground floor of the lobby.

Shepard smiled as it left, then turned her attention back to the hologram. "So. Tour guide. That's convenient. Tell me about where I am right now."

"You are standing at Presidium Tourism Terminal Eleven. On either side of this lobby are the embassies of the various citadel races, as well as the office of the the C-Sec Executor, Venari Pallin. one hundred and twenty degrees spinward from this position, you will find the Citadel Tower, where the Council meets regularly to discuss matters of galactic importance. That same region contains several off-limits areas primarily used by the Keepers, the exact nature and configuration of which is unknown. One hundred and twenty degrees antispinward is the Presidium Commons, a center for retail commerce and entertainment for all residents of the Presidium, and includes the Financial and Residential districts of the Presidium, and the Purgatory Club. The Citadel Embassies, where you are currently standing, is located in the Political District, which contains C-Sec headquarters, Immigration offices, and twenty four secure docking berths to accommodate high priority civilian and military craft below two thousand metric tons loaded weight. As a newcomer to the Citadel, it may interest you to know that visitors, military personnel and other authorized non-diplomatic residents may obtain temporary housing through the Citadel Immigration Office."

Shepard made a note of this, even knowing that she would end up asking the VI at least five more times before she could remember it all. "What was the creature that just left?" she asked.

"The other guest that was in your party was a member of the Hanar species, indigenous to the planet Kahje."

"Are the Hanar one of the ruling races here or just another peasant like us?"

"I'm sorry, I don't have the answer to that question. For information regarding the political status of Kahje with respect to the Citadel Conventions, please contact the Hanar Embassy directly. You may also wish to browse for publicly available information in the Galactic Codex."

"The what?"

"The Galactic Codex is a comprehensive guide to the Citadel Convention Races and relevant galactic history. Although critics have described it as, quote, 'wildly inaccurate' and 'at best apocryphal,' it is still widely considered to be a useful introduction to interstellar affairs for the un-initiated."

"So it's a... guide book? Like a hitchiker's guide?"

"While physical print copies exist, the Galactic Codex is primarily distributed through extranet software patches that strive to keep it constantly up to date. Updates are released on either a weekly or monthly basis, depending on the number of pending lawsuits against its editorial board. The Codex can be purchased at the Citadel Gift Shop for the affordable price of six hundred thousand credits."

Shepard, Williams an Alenko all shared a long, skeptical glance. Then the Commander said, "I'll pass..."

"I have a question," Williams said, "What are those big things over there?" she was pointing at a large, hulking creature walking on all fours that looked like a cross between an elephant and a silverback gorilla. It was almost three meters tall and looked like something that should be hauling riders armed with antitank rifles on a saddle. "They have harnesses so they look domesticated, but I don't see any owners."

The VI looked at her for a moment, tracked where her eyes were pointing, and then answered, "That is Deputy Secretary Xeltan, a ranking diplomat in the Elcor Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Elcor Homeworld, Dekuna, is represented by the Elcor Embassy, located fifteen meters to your left."

"The Elcor have an embassy?" Williams asked, incredulous. Xeltan crossed the lobby as they watched, ducking through a large doorway into said Embassy without closing the door behind him. "Geez... I can't tell the animals from the aliens in here."

Shepard grinned, "And here we are, just talking apes."

"Puts things in perspective, that's for sure."

"Thank you, Avina," Shepard said, and turned to leave the terminal to head towards the Elcor embassy. Alenko barked a protest almost immediately, "Wait, don't you need permission first before-"

But Shepard was already halfway across the lobby and standing in front of the large glass partition that walled off the office from the rest of the lobby. Compared to Ambassador Udina's office, it wasn't particularly impressive, just a space to put a desk and some shelves and a computer terminal there. Xeltan had left the glass door open when he came through, so Commander Shepard was careful not to misinterpret it as an invitation. She paused in the open door and tapped gently on the glass partition, waiting for a response.

An utterly deadpan, synthesized voice answered from inside: "Furtively: I understand what you're saying. Frustrated: But these allegations are extremely serious. I cannot just..."

Another voice, almost identical, and equally monotone and emotionless, interjected, "Angrily: This is serious. My reputation is at stake. Angrily: I spoke with the consort in confidence, and her alone. And she betrayed that confidence."

"Calmingly: Alright. I will look into it for you. In the mean time, do not do anything rash."

Shepard knocked on the glass again, a little louder this time. This second time, Xeltan moved aside and the second Elcor Shepard hadn't seen - perched behind a desk too huge for any human to find useful - leaned over and stared at her. She couldn't read the expression on its face, or for that matter, tell what most of its face even was. It didn't seem to even have a mouth, just two dark and beady eyes and a pair of slits on the side of its cheeks that were either gills or nostrils or some combination thereof. She made another mental note to download some information on Elcor anatomy, just to know for sure what she was looking at.

"Pleased greeting," said the Elcor in its monotone voice, "It is always good to see your kind. I am Ambassador Calyn. Genuine query: Is there something I can do for you this day?"

Shepard stepped inside, taking a deep breath, and extended her hand over the top of the desk, "I'm Commander Shepard with the Alliance Navy. We just arrived here today on the SSV Normandy..."

A loud hissing sound cut her off, and a small round biped she hadn't noticed until just now cut in from a speaker on the front of its environment suit, "Earth-clan, you are in the wrong place, I think. _Your_ ambassador is down the hall in the big office with a balcony." The thing in the suit shifted its weight unsteadily, like a small child wearing too many layers of clothing on a winter day. The pressure suit it was wearing left absolutely everything to the imagination; the joints were segmented and reinforced, the gloves were three-fingered claws that appeared to be operated mechanically. Even the face was just a mask that covered the creature's entire head except for two small goggle-like eye holes through which nothing could be seen but a faint yellow glow.

"Chastising remark," said Calyn, "Don't be so rude, Din. At least introduce yourself."

The round alien sighed. "I am Din Korlack. Volus Ambassador. Is there something I can help you find, Earth clan?"

Either the Volus was in an exceptionally foul mood today, or that was his natural disposition, or perhaps that was actually the default setting for his species. Shepard couldn't tell either way, and something about this was strangely refreshing: at least humans didn't have the monopoly on jerkass politicians. "This is Lieutenant Kaiden Alenko and Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams. It's our first time here on the Citadel. We're just finding our way around here, and we thought we might introduce ourselves, and ask also some questions about the Citadel, if it's not too much trouble."

Xeltan shifted his weight, "Genuine enthusiasm. That is a very wise approach. It is better to seek answers to questions than guard one's ignorance in silence."

"Generously. Agreed," dronned Calyn, "What would you like to know, Commander Shepard?"

"Just for starters," Shepard took a small step back and bobbed her head back towards the lobby, "About the kinds of people who live here. All most of us know is that all the species of Citadel Space come here to trade and negotiate deals, but we don't know much about who all of those species are. I'm familiar with the Turians and the Asari and I've worked with Salarians once or twice..."

Ambassador Korlack hissed and said, "I'm sure our history and culture would simply bore you, Earth-clan."

Shepard managed a friendly smile that wasn't entirely false. "Try me. I might surprise you."

"Genuine enthusiasm," said Calyn, "I delight in telling the history of my people. It is agreeable to share our culture with others."

Ambassador Korlack took a deep breath and muttered something unintelligible.

"The Elcor were just beginning to explore Council space when the Asari first made contact with us," Calyn went on, "With their help, we discovered the relay closest to our system, and from there the Citadel. Proudly, within one lifetime we established a regular route to the Citadel, and quickly became one of the more active species living on this great station."

Alenko asked, "Your system doesn't have a mass relay?"

"Nostalgically. Not at that time. A relay was eventually repositioned to the edge of our system for our use. But the initial voyages outside of our home star required us to traverse interstellar distances under our own power. The journey to the nearest relay took eleven galactic standard years before the Asasri helped to relocate it to our own system."

Shepard asked, "How long is a galactic standard year?"

Xeltan answered, "Informative. Citadel Conventions define a galactic standard year at exactly three million seconds."

Shepard did the math in her head while Alenko and Williams' eyes were both glazing over. "So about thirty five Earth days. Interesting... so your first voyages into deep space, you did it the hard way."

Calyn shifted his weight, "Proudly. We did not have the advantage of a native relay system like the Asari and Salarians."

"Or the Earth-clans, for that matter," Korlack interjected.

"Frankly," Added Calyn, "we Elcor prefer safety and familiarity of our own colonies to the confines of space travel. Our society is built on small tight knit groups, though we are always welcoming to outsiders. Our government tends to be very stable. Our people are not comfortable with sudden changes."

That would explain why they were comfortable with the long interstellar voyages too. Maybe it was the droning monotone voice of its translator or the still, glacial body language, but Shepard got the impression that Elcor were not a species that was capable of experiencing boredom.

And it occurred to her, also, that the translator systems used by Citadel species were probably programmed by each species in a voice that most closely matched what they thought others expected to hear. What she was hearing, therefore, must have been the Elcor's interpretation of what English sounded like. They probably couldn't hear any difference in inflection or emphasis at all...

But how could that be true, given Calyn's reaction to Korlack? "And you, Ambassador?" Shepard said, turning to the Volus, "Tell me about your people."

"Well," he hissed again, taking a breath inside his exo-suit, and said, "My people came to the Citadel shortly after the Asari and Salarians discovered it. We were instrumental in establishing a standardized galactic economy. However, despite our long association with the Citadel and our many contributions to galactic society, we still do not hold a seat on the Council."

"You discovered the Citadel on your own?"

"Aru is a gateway system, although only two of our relays have ever been activated. Those two lead to Turian and Asari space, although the Turians hadn't developed space travel at the time and we weren't aware of them."

"How did you take a route through the Turian system without realizing they lived there?"

"Arrogance," Korlack said, and hissed a breath, "I am not ashamed to say. We had never encountered other life forms before, so we assumed most life in the galaxy would be similar to ours. Ammonia-breathing, thermosynthetic, at least partially aquatic. Even after we met the Asari and Salarians, Palaven is different enough from our expectations of what a habitable world could look like that we never imagined _anything_ could live there."

"So then, what's it like on your homeworld?"

"I would say that Irune is the most beautiful planet in the galaxy, but almost everyone says that of their own home. I'll say that the Earth-clans would consider it a very cold place. Too cold for dihydrogen oxide to exist in a molten state, at least," Korlack glanced out of his office window, and Shepard realized he meant water. So Irune was a cryovolcanic planet... Korlack took another hissing breath, "Most of us live in the marshes where the methane sea is about a meter deep," he took a deep hissing breath and added, "Which is why you will likely never meet a Volus who doesn't wear an exo-suit. The environmental conditions my people can live in are difficult enough to replicate even on our own planet, let alone in a place like the Citadel."

"What are your people like?" Shepard asked.

"We are tribal by nature," A hissing breath, "but our ways are not violent. We barter and trade our lands and tribe members in order to increase status. Larger tribes often engulf smaller ones, and eventually split again." Another hissing breath, and then Korlack waddled forwards slightly. In spite of himself, he seemed to be enjoying this. "Our society is very malleable, and our government is always shifting and changing. Since we're not physically adept, we trade our services for protection."

"So..." Shepard looked at both of them, then at Xeltan, looking somehow deeply unhappy and pretending not to be (what was it about him that gave that impression? She couldn't read his face but she somehow knew it was the Elcor equivalent of a frown). "What exactly do you do here? Or rather, what is an Ambassador's role here on the Citadel?"

"I look out for the best interests of the Volus people," Korlack said, then hissed a breath, "No easy task considering how easily we're overlooked by the Council."

"Chastising rebuke," Said Calyn, "Din, the Council favors your species greatly."

"You are naive. The Earth clan will be invited to the Council long before my people will."

"Clarifying," Calyn went on, "The Ambassadors are advocates for associate races in Citadel space. Like most ambassadors, I work to bring the problems and requests of Elcor groups to the attention of the council."

"Hah. They only give us these positions to keep us quiet. The council doesn't care about us."

"Chastising rebuke. Your tone is inappropriate, Din. This human is not to blame for your malcontent or your misconceived suspicions."

Alenko asked, "Why _aren't_ the Volus on the council?

Korlack stalked forward, "The Council is supposed to represent the political and economic cooperation of the most influential races in the galaxy. But in practice, it's really just a military junta. The Asari, the Turians and the Salarians together represent the three most formidable armed forces in the galaxy. Any one of them could easily dominate any other species in Citadel Space... except for the Earth-clans, it would seem."

Calyn stirred. "Dismissive. Ignore the Volus ambassador, human. He is incorrect in his assessment."

"Really? When is the last time a new species came to the Citadel with a military as big as the Earth Clans? Big enough for the Council to get this excited?" Korlack shook is head, "This is just the final proof of what we've been saying all along. The Citadel Council isn't interested in galactic unity. It imposes its dominance through threat of force.

Xeltan chimed in, "Skeptically. Then why do the Volus enjoy such great influence over the Council's affairs, Din?"

"Influence, but not representation. How long have we been waiting? How long do you think we'll continue to wait? Bah. This talk is wasted on the humans."

Commander Shepard hadn't been around long enough to judge whether Korlack was onto something or just airing grievances. But his disposition definitely seemed more like a personality quirk than a species norm. "You seem to have a bit of a chip on your shoulder, Ambassador."

Korlack hissed a deeper breath than usual, "You humans are new to the citadel, and yet the Council has granted you great favor just because you have a huge military."

"Chastising rebuke," Calyn said, "Din, your species has always been granted great concessions. Your territory has increased tenfold since coming to the Citadel."

"Hmph. Details. We still have no real say in the decisions that affect Citadel space."

Chief Williams spoke up, "Ambassador Calyn. Out of curiosity, why is your translator narrating everything you say?

"Patiently. The Elcor language includes scents and slight movements as part of its basic vocabulary. Plainly. We discovered early on that our spoken language is difficult to understand without the context provided by the non-verbal component of our vocabulary. Elcor translation systems therefore add appropriate contextual notation in written and verbal communications so that we may be better understood by others."

Korlack waddled back and forth, "Why do you bother, Calyn? These Earth clan don't really care about our ways."

"Remorseful response. Din, you don't really believe that. And if you do, I am very sorry for you..."

"Sincere apology," Xeltan interjected, "But we have some sensitive business to discuss here, if there is nothing further you require."

There was definitely something the Elcor was putting out that was broadcasting anxiety on every wavelength imaginable. "You seem distressed," Shepard said in what was obviously a massive understatement, "Is there something I can do to help?

"Frustrated response. My career is going down in flames and it is all because of the Asari Consort. She is the one who started all this."

Not that she had any idea who or what an Asari Consort was, but that seemed immaterial to the actual problem. "What did she do to get you so upset?"

"Guardedly. I cannot speak more about this problem, it is too sensitive. Suffice to say, it has compromised my authority as a diplomat and severely threatens my livelihood."

"I see... where can I find this Asari consort?"

All three of the aliens in the room were silent for a long moment, staring at Shepard as if they weren't sure what to think. It was, to be sure, a complete longshot: the outsider, new to the Citadel, barely knew a Volus from a vacuum cleaner, offering to step in and help a longstanding political figure solve an intractable problem. It was the kind of breach of etiquette that only a "fresh off the boat" newcomer would be allowed to make.

And this, more than anything, Shepard was counting on. If she had been better known on the Citadel, this would seem arrogant and presumptuous and an obvious attempt to curry favor. If she had been better connected, it would seem like an attempt at political manipulation, trying to get an angle on the Elcor delegation. But she was too new for this to be some kind of power play, and too inexperienced for them to assume she knew better than to butt into somebody else's business. Which, she hoped, meant they would humor her...

"Skeptically optimistic," Xeltan said, which was exactly the reaction Shepard was hoping for, "She is across the bridge from here near the Immigration Center. Her offices are easy enough to spot."

"Good to know. So I'll keep my ears open, and if I find out anything that can help, I'll let you know."

"Yes. That is ideal. Good day, human."

Shepard smiled and walked out of the office, closing the glass door behind her. Right on cue, as expected, Williams leaned close to her as she left, "What the hell was that all about? We've been on the Citadel for two hours and you're already running espionage ops?"

"Come on, Ash. Never hurts to have friends in high places."

"Sucking up to aliens in hopes of earning favors doesn't seem like a sound strategy, Ma'am."

" _Saren_ has plenty of allies. We could use a few ourselves." Shepard walked back across the lobby to the Avina terminal and spoke up as the hologram turned to look at her, "I'd like to get to the Asari Consort's offices."

"The consort Sha'ira can be found across the lake from here. To reach it, you may use the upper level pedway through Huerta Memorial Hopsital on the twentieth floor."

Which meant an elevator ride, of course. Shepard started for the elevator as Williams and Alenko both shook their heads in amazement. "I probably won't do it today," Shepard said as the doors closed, "I'll do a little research first, come up with a game plan."

"You're really doing this?" Alenko asked as Shepard punched the ground floor, "I mean, meddling in other planet's political intrigue..."

"Fifty other races come through the Citadel every day," Shepard said, "And you heard the Volus ambassador. None of them know anything about humanity except that we're new, we have a big fleet and a lot of territory. Some of them look at what's happening in the Traverse and think 'serves em right.' Maybe we get more of them on our side, we'll have allies against Saren and the Geth."

Williams said, "I didn't see anyone coming to our aid when the Turians invaded Shanxi."

"The Council did."

"But they're not stepping in now."

"And if they won't help us, we've got to find someone who will."


	21. Chapter 20

**20 - Pilgrimage: Keelah, I am so bored**

The first kilometer and a half of the walk through Tayseri Ward was a fascinating odyssey of sights and sounds and new places and tiny little adventures in this artificial urban wonderland. Tali'Zorah watched the shadows of starships moving over the ward arms, the auroras overhead as some random piece of debris bounced off the air shield above. She saw a herd of Keepers tearing down an entire retaining wall and carrying it down a steep incline like insects dissecting a carcass; she hadn't even known Keepers could move in herds.

And then the monotony set in and she caught herself unconsciously wondering how much longer the walk would be. Eventually the endless stretch of ceramic walkways became just... well, an endless stretch of ceramic walkways. Catwalks, balconies, tunnels and more catwalks, and they all sort of blended in together until the only thought she could hold on to any longer was _Am I getting close yet?_

Of course, the Quarians had been a nomadic people long before the advent of space travel. On Rannoch, the ancient Quarians had migrated with the seasons, at a time when their bodies "carried the seeds that spread the desert grass" as the legend put it. They were wanderers, travelers, natural explorers. They made their homes wherever they found them, and carried with them everything that they needed. In a way, the development of the exo-suit was a natural step in their social and biological evolution, as it allowed individual Quarians to wander anywhere they wanted any time they pleased.

So both biologically and technologically adapted to a life constantly on the move, Tali'Zorah decided to cope with her boredom in a uniquely Quarian way: she highlighted the walking path on her HUD, set an alarm for two hours, then closed on eye and fell asleep.

Her legs moved almost on their own, like a highly focussed reflex action, following the barely-perceived markers of her HUD's navigation cues. She woke up only twice before the alarm, both times disturbed from her mobile slumber by some random obstacle placed in her path that she had to be slightly more awake than not to navigate around. The first time it had been an air car double parked on the pedway by an annoyingly self-interested Salarian, the second time it had been the body of a drunk Krogan passed out on a street corner. She'd woke up just long enough to navigate around these obstacles, briefly checked her progress, and then nodded off again.

A human named John Grissom once cryptically remarked, "Humans count sheep... Quarians count steps."

Two hours and forty minutes later, just five minutes before her alarm, Tali'Zorah was jarred awake by a soft collision with what she immediately identified as a pair of fat humans standing unreasonably close to a doorway. She'd bumped into them while trying to get past and the collection of trained reflex actions that had kept her walking until now hadn't been deliberate enough to avoid them. She snapped her head up and muttered a polite-sounding Excuse Me and pretended not to notice one of them making a rude gesture to her back as she passed. The crowds here had thickened, and she realized she was getting into a residential area with more people in it. She yawned, stretched, and started scanning holographic signs for any points of interest nearby.

She felt an itch in the back of her throat and a tightness in the pit of her stomach and before she could even think about it her suit flashed an amber-colored warning in the corner of her HUD shaped like a rain drop. Quarians called this the Piss Light; it served a double purpose, both to remind a traveler that the waste collection system was near capacity, and as a warning against dehydration. It was customary to solve both problems at once.

A sign by a very long, very tall building read _Tayseri Ward - Upper Markets_ in Asari and Turian lettering script. She stepped inside, and was immediately accosted by a seven foot hologram of a naked and absurdly attractive Turian spinning a pair of footlong, segmented phalluses in front of his hips like bone-covered fan blades; bright pink-lettering flashed over the apparition in stylized Quarian script: "NerveStim Pro - Four dimensions for all your dimensions!"

Tali'Zorah took a small step back. "Keelah..."

The ad flickered and vanished as soon as it had come, leaving its stunned recipient suddenly very very awake. It took her a few moments still to get her focus back, and then she gave up on that idea and called up the building's directory on her suit computer. There was a general store of sorts in a booth just past the lobby, so she started off in that direction, being extra careful not to trigger any more ads.

Sargon's Essentials was the largest booth in the center of the retail level. A Turian in a grey suit with a blue and white hood was standing by the kiosk, looking both amused and annoyed at a skinny human standing at his counter with a large square metallic box in his arms. Tali'Zorah started towards the purchase kiosk, but the human stepped to it first before she could reach it.

" _Now_ what are you doing?" the Turian asked, "I told you, I don't do store credit."

"No, no, I'm just... well... that's weird..."

"What's weird?"

The human set the box on the counter and turned his full attention to the kiosk. "It should be here. It was right on the screen last time."

The Turian sighed, "Look, friend, I don't think you bought this here. I don't even sell this model."

"Look, I know it was you, I remember your face." The human stepped away from the kiosk and put his hands on his hips.

Tali'Zorah seized the opening, stepped into the gap and tapped the kiosk. She started navigating through the menus, trying to figure out how Sargon had his store organized.

"Really? That's impressive," said the Turian in a tone of voice that was equal parts skepticism and irreverence, "Usually, most humans can't tell one Turian from another."

"This was the place! Now are you going to give me a refund or not?"

Tali'Zorah found the heading that contained what she needed.

 _Filtered water..._

 _Turian brandy..._

 _Cream of Varren..._

"Do you have your proof of purchase?" asked the Turian.

The human's face started to turn bright red and for a moment Tali wondered if he was going to unload a venom sack or something. "What? No, I... I don't think you ever gave me one..."

"I'm sorry, then. I can't help you."

"But... but what are you..."

"Can't. Help. You." He held up his hands in a gesture of apology, then turning to Tali'Zorah added, "Young lady, you _do_ realize your credit chip is almost depleted..."

She entered her last purchase into the kiosk and then nodded at the Turian with a smile in her eyes, "Thanks for your concern! This will be all, though."

"If that's what you want..." The Turian shrugged, and authorized the transfer. Within a few moments a small dumbwaiter clicked into place beneath his store counter; he took a two small, spherical bottles from under it: a simple plastic bulb filled with purified water, and a smaller, heavy-looking dewar flask filled with liquid methane. Tali'Zorah took the two bottles, smiled again and walked away, leaving her credit chip and all of two remaining Citadel credits behind, unspent.

She found a quiet spot off to the side of the market floor, squeezed in between a parked air car and a pair of Volus sitting on the ground that were either sleeping or huddled together for warmth and Tali'Zorah just assumed sleeping. She set the methane bottle down down and leaned against the parked air car while she opened her omni-tool and went to work. Sterilizing the water bulb was easy enough; she held the gauntlet of the tool over the nuzzle and programmed it to blast the little retractable straw with enough ionizing radiation to kill a small rodent. Only after the tool decided the nozzle was safe did Tali'Zorah reach up to the chin of her suit, unhook one of two induction tubes and attach it to the nozzle of the bulb. A tiny diaphragm at the mouth of the port closed down around the nozzle, and Tali'Zorah turned the whole thing upside-down. The water bulb was designed to let some air into the chamber so that the water would actually pour out when somebody tried to drink it; Tali'Zorah made sure the bulb stayed completely upside down so that no outside unfiltered air would get through to the inside of her suit. To that end, she tucked the bulb under her arm, holding it there like a ripe fruit, and then unhooked the other induction tube and plugged it into the methane bottle. This one needed no special sterilization: anything oxygen-breathing that managed to come in through the nozzle wouldn't still be alive by the time it got to her suit's reservoir.

The gas hissed out of the tiny bottle in a rush as the liquid boiled into her suit. She felt the air quality improve immediately, and the last hint of drowsiness from her long sleep-walk vanished. At almost the same time she heard the soft click as the induction hose disengaged from the water bottle and she released the tube and tucked it back into the chin socket on the helmet of her suit. The methane bottle emptied moments later, totally depleted. She took both bulbs and chucked them into the recycler slot on the wall. The electronic sucking sound as the machinery took the case started one of the volus awake; he looked up at her with his empty, enviro-suited eyes, then dropped his head back on his companion's shoulder and went back to sleep.

Her last order of business was the simplest by far. She walked through the thin crowd around the market until she found a little door marked "Facilities" and found the little wall panel that let her select what kind of facility she needed based on her unique anatomy. There were many different species on the citadel with many different biological needs; there were life forms that defected and consumed from the same orifice, there were creatures that didn't release a distinct waste product at all and instead just shed huge chunks of themselves wherever they went. The Krogan were known to excrete waste product in the form of extremely dense nodules that could be almost as hard as granite and had evolved to be very easily confused with fertilized eggs (evolved to be decoys, probably, to make it harder for Tuchanka's many predators to eat Krogan babies). Salarians excreted a thick, sweet-smelling paste that was extremely poisonous to just about everyone, and the Asari turned their lower abdomens completely inside-out, ejected the contents, and then closed themselves again. Suffice to say, each one of these species required a very specific set of facilities, most of which Tali'Zorah either couldn't use or was too afraid to even try.

No one outside the Flotilla had ever invented a bathroom fit for quarians, but the facilities designed for female Turians came amazingly close, so Tali'Zorah selected that. After a moment, the proper compartment was shuttled into place behind the door - rising from storage like one of a dozen little elevators - and Tali'Zorah stepped inside. The room contained nothing except for a pair of arm rests attached to the wall and a little funnel about chest high; a Turian woman could lean back against that funnel and line up the exit point of her intestines (located just between her shoulder blades), relieve herself in the funnel and then go about her day. For Tali'Zorah, it was a simple matter of reaching around and releasing the rejection hose from the back of her helmet, holding the nozzle carefully over the funnel, and ordering the suit to vent.

Two and a half liters of foul, soiled liquid poured out of that house and for the millionth time Tali'Zorah was glad that she couldn't smell anything outside of her suit.

The yellow raindrop symbol on her HUD flickered and went out. Normality was restored. And a tap of her finger on the little switch hidden on the side of her helmet popped the drinking tube out of the inside of the helmet into position for her to sip from it without having to use her hands.

Such was the life of a Quarian Nomad. Perpetual motion in a constant search, never stopping and never ceasing. Even when she rested she was still moving, and even when she moved she was exactly where she needed to be.

There were few other things in the Milky Way that compared to the Quarian Species. They had evolved to be symbiotic with everything on their planet, nurturing and culturing and distributing life wherever they found it. Seeds germinated in their stomachs and excreted to mature, grasses and mosses rode their skins to their new homes. There were at least eight different species on Rannoch that could fertilize Quarian ovum (and one that seemed to strongly prefer them), and there were at least twelve that could carry an unborn Quarian to pre-term. Everything on Rannoch was cooperative, everything shared life with everything else. Their planet had no predators, only symbiotes; it had no pathogens, only friendly photo-synthesizers. There was no conflict in the nature of their world, only in what they eventually made for each other.

Even the Geth had initially been just another synthetic symbiosis. They depended on the Quarians for purpose and the quarians depended on them for their assistance and labor. When the Rebellion became inevitable, the Quarians were horrified: war, they knew, was the consequence of artifice, of synthetic living and synthetic thinking. War was what happened when nature was subjugated, because nature sought only harmony and technology disrupted harmony for the advantage of the people. The Geth - the servants of the people - were artifice made manifest. Conflict was in their very nature. And now the Quarians, cut off from the natural world that promised the only peace, were trapped in a life of artifice that offered them nothing but strife and conflict day in and day out. One day, when the homeworld was retaken again, the Quarian people would learn from the lessons of the past and abandon all technology once and for all, returning to the harmony and peace of nature. The day the Quarians purged the Geth from Rannoch would be the last day anyone in the galaxy ever saw her kind again.

The Upper Markets weren't far from the Silversun Strip. Down a flight of stairs and down a street lined with produce stands on one side and bags of garbage on the other (a questionable juxtaposition of there ever was one). The strip announced itself by a splash of red and yellow fluorescent light, floating holographic logos in the air, projecting from kiosks and street lamps and bathing the facades of buildings with false shapes and graphics to make them more attractive or just to bombard the eye with general advertising. Silversun Strip was a garish nightmare of commercialism and urban alacrity.

And nothing showed off this excess more heinously than the Castle Arcade, much to Tali's chagrin. The entire second floor of the building was a continuous streaming animated logo that might as well have been a live extranet feed for all the compressed advertising squeezed into it. Flickering ads for the second Blasto Movie, an Asari brothel, a Krogan phone sex operator, a Salarian insurance company, something called Starbucks. Electronic sounds of fictional laser blasters and jingling musical rewards and V.I. voices encouraging players to try harder and play longer. Tali'Zorah assumed that Tannenbaum used this place as a cover because all the noise and overlapping electric signals made it hard to eavesdrop on a conversation. At least, she hoped that was the reason...

Doran Gord hadn't given her a description of the person she was looking for, just a name, a sex and a species. Tali'Zorah knew human females when she saw them, so at a glance from the doorway that narrowed it down to one of the fifteen women currently sitting in the arcade. Most of them were engrossed in a game of some kind; about half were playing high stakes quasar, a few others on some kind of claw machine, and still others standing in the middle of waist-high safety rings playing some kind of VR game. Only three of them didn't seem particularly engrossed in anything and were just sitting idly, minding their own business. None of them seemed to notice her at all.

 _So I'll ask around, find someone named Alexis._ She fixed her sights on one of the women farthest from the door and started walking in that direction. She made it all of two steps before a small hand reached out from a stool by one of the quasar machines and caught her wrist firmly enough to bring her to a complete stop. "Sit down, kid. Sit down next to Auntie Lexi."

Tali'Zorah found that the shriveled little hand that had grabbed her belonged to the small, thin, shriveled old woman who seemed to be about two thirds the size and three times the age of the average human. She had soft, gentle eyes that were otherwise locked on the quasar machine but managed to glance upwards at the Quarian visitor with a grandmother's warmth. "Are you Alex... er... Missus Tannebaum?" Tali'Zorah asked.

"You must be Tali," said the old woman, "Doran Gord told me you might wander in here."

Tali'Zorah casually took the seat next to the old lady and made a show of selecting a quasar bet. She had no money, of course, so she couldn't have played if she wanted to, and she didn't want to. Quarians somehow managed to never win anything, and even if they did, the house would accuse them of using the technology in their suits to cheat.

"It's good to meet you," Tali'Zorah said. The old woman smiled her ascent and went back to playing quasar, but she got the impression she still had Alexis' undivided attention. "Did Doran tell you what I wanted?"

"He said you had valuable information to trade. Something related to the attack on Eden Prime. It's a good thing he called me and nobody else. I can get you some pretty good compensation for that kind of data. Assuming it's as valuable as he implied."

There was skepticism in Alexis' voice. Tali'Zorah tried not to be offended. "Do you want to talk about it here or outside?" she looked around the room, cringing at the noise. Even through her helmet it was almost overpowering.

"Too many eyes and ears outside," Alexis said, "Do a girl a favor? Flash me a copy."

Tali'Zorah frowned, "My information is valuable. I can't just give it to you for no pay."

Alexis grinned, "You're a smart girl, flash me a skin copy. You know how to make a skin copy?"

Sighing, Tali'Zorah decided it made no sense to argue with the crazy old lady and created a local encrypted copy with a one-time key. The Skin Copy extranet app was intended for one-time temporary transfers of information from one person to another; it was impossible to create a local copy of anything sent by Skin Copy, you could only read it for five minutes before it re-encrypted itself and then self destructed.

Tali'Zorah pulled up a file from her suit computer labeled "EdenPrime", already highlighted and annotated to point to the most interesting parts, and sent them short-range to Alexis' omni-tool. The old lady went still for a moment, her eyes darting back and forth. Then she turned to Tali'Zorah with a bright, grandmotherly smile, leaning back against the quasar machine. "That's more than I was expecting!"

"Pretty good, right?" Tali'Zorah smiled back, even though the lady couldn't see her face.

"I wouldn't go _that_ far."

"What do you mean?"

"It's a lot of data, sure. You were very thorough. But it's not all that valuable, I'm afraid."

"Not that valuable? What are you talking about? I have detailed scans of the Geth, their ship, their leaders... there are military officers who would literally _kill_ for this kind of intelligence!"

"Doesn't seem that way. You have some random Turian hanging out with the Geth and something that looks like a severely over-engineered construction mech. I mean, it's probably got some value, but I doubt you'll get that much for it."

Tali'Zorah's heart sank. "How much do you think?"

"Well, if you had taken the time to categorize and whittle it down to the relevant data, you might get a premium. As it is, you'll get about two thousand for the raw feed. Less, if you include the data that was captured by drone observation."

"If I include...?" Tali was taken aback. That was almost half the data she'd collected, including the details on the battleship and its Turian pilot... "How could the entire file be worth more _without_ the drone data?"

"We have an old human saying: Less is more."

"That's a strange saying... Less is _not_ more. Less is _less_. Perhaps you mean less is _better_? That certainly isn't true when it comes to data brokers."

Alexis suddenly looked uncomfortable. "Well I-"

"I'll give it to you for fifteen thousand credits," Tali'Zorah said, "The Shadow Broker can sell _less_ and get _more_ if he wants to."

"I'm sorry to tell you this, dear. There's no way you'll get fifteen thousand for that."

"But that Turian and the old Asari woman-"

"A mysterious deformed Turian and an Asari prostitute in a dress? Do you think you can sell a photograph of them for six thousand credits each? Because that is what you are suggesting at fifteen thousand credits. Two thousand is an optimistic estimate, dear."

Tali'Zorah felt her blood starting to heat as the scene pivoted around her. She had been conned before, she knew the signs from various species, and she knew all the things they all did when they were conning someone. One of those things - the one more universal than any other - was their way of answering questions. New answers and new problems had solutions that were quick and immediate as if the answer had already been decided ahead of time. A conversation with a con man was often like having a conversation with an actor who knew all of his lines when you could barely remember yours. The con man's lines were delivered smoothly and perfectly because they were a product of creativity and practice, and not, as it were, a result of memory.

It was easy to test that too. "That Turian, though... he's not just any Turian. He used to be high ranked in the Turian military. A general or a colonel of some kind. This could be a major liability for the Hierarchy. It might even lead to war!"

"Retired military isn't the same thing as active. Both sides will dismiss this as an isolated incident even if you _do_ go public for whatever reason."

Tali'Zorah flinched. The answer was so smooth and so well delivered it could only have been a very creative lie.

So the old woman was conning her. She wasn't sure to what end, but she wasn't going to let herself get gouged either. Maybe the old peddler was just trying to get a better cut of the final trade? "Okay. Suppose I _did_ sell this to the Shadow Broker," Tali'Zorah said, feigning the ignorance of someone who hadn't already done so a dozen times through other agents, "What would happen next?"

"You would transfer the files to me, encrypted using the Broker's algorithm. Then you would access a security VI that would confirm the deletion of the traded data, and on that confirmation you would receive your payment. If you attempt to double deal and keep the data in an off-site storage medium or protected storage, the Broker will reverse your compensation with or without your cooperation."

"And suppose I decide to offer you a finder's fee to put me in touch with a more specialized agent?" Which is what Tali'Zorah has had to do numerous times in the past, especially when dealing with cartographic data on pulsar systems.

"There's no one more specialized than _me_ for this sort of data."

Tali'Zorah's eyes widened. Whatever the old bag was after, she wanted it bad. "That seems like an amazing coincidence... all the same, I think I'll look around and see what the other information brokers would offer for this."

"I'm telling you, two thousand is as much as you're going to get."

"Then how much are _you_ going to get?"

The old woman chuckled, "That's different. I have an actual line of credit with his organization."

"That doesn't make sense either. Information is information..."

The grandmotherly smile on the old woman's face showed signs of strain. Signs of being forced. Signs of being the affectation it really was, dishonest and deceptive. She was losing her patience and getting frustrated. Tali'Zorah, with a mental command, set her shield booster into Ready Mode.

"I didn't come here to waste my time, young lady..."

Tali'Zorah stood up from the stool. "And I didn't come here to have my intelligence insulted. Two thousand for battlefield data on an invading army that no one has ever seen before? How stupid do you think I am?" She started to walk away, but the old woman's tiny hand reached out and caught her wrist again. The grip was surprisingly strong for someone so small and frail looking.

"Okay. Look. I might go as high as ten thousand. That's a huge deal for you considering this data."

Tali'Zorah turned and glared at her, eyes shining through the visor. "Ma'am, I've sold _crop statistics_ for more than that. Why are you trying to rip me off?"

Alexis stood up and put her hands on her hips. Standing up, she looked like a small cartoon caricature of what a human being was supposed to look like. An apologetic look flickered on her face, "You have to understand, dear. Data without context doesn't hold a high value, especially if the source is likely to be questioned. Like your crop statistics... you get a good rate on that because you're a Quarian. Of you were a Krogan or a Vorcha, you'd be lucky to get lunch money for it."

"Maybe so. But I've got the data, and I'm going to get the prize for this, whatever it is."

Alelxis looked sad, and also a little anxious as Tali'Zorah started to walk away. "You have no idea what you're doing, young lady..."

"Tell you what," she stopped and turned to the old lady, "I'll give you two thousand credits to tell me how to contact the broker myself. That's a huge deal for you, because we both know that if I ask around long enough it's only a matter of time before I find someone who isn't going to jerk me around the way you-" her words exploded in a gasp as something crashed into her chest with the kinetic energy of a falling piano. She felt her feet leaving the ground and saw the ceiling of the arcade tumbling away from her. There was a high pitched squeal and then a ringing in her ears and the feeling of pins and needles on her skin as if she'd just been electrocuted, and a message was just flashing on her visor's HUD telling her that the emergency shield cell had just been triggered and overloaded by a high-energy impact...

 _I've been shot!_

It was all happening in slow motion. Her mind was going a thousand kilometers a second as she tried to make sense of what had just happened. She hadn't seen it, but she had somehow been aware of a movement of the old lady's arm as she brought something small and darkly colored out of her handbag. Didn't matter what kind of weapon it really was. It had enough impulse to knock her off her feet, so if she got hit again without a barrier it would probably turn her inside-out.

 _The old bitch shot me..._

She hit the ground and sprawled, gasping for breath. This was the part, she knew, where most mammals that had evolved on worlds infested with predators would be experiencing a fight-or-flight response and pumping adrenaline all through their systems. Rannoch had no predators, and Quarians had never evolved a panic reflex. But as with everything else, they'd learned to provide with technology what they'd never been given by nature, and the moment Tali'Zorah hit the ground, her suit pumped a blast of pure oxygen into her helmet.

In addition to the lack of predators, Rannoch's atmosphere also had a relative lack of oxygen. Quarian physiology had evolved to burn methane hydrocarbons under low energy conditions; exposing a quarian to oxygen was a bit like exposing a lit cigarette to nitroglycerine. So rather than sprawl and go limp as most Quarians naturally would, Tali'Zorah hit the ground and rolled, scrambled to her feet, and took off in a sprint like a startled housecat. The movement was so fast and so unexpected she was surprised at herself for even having done it. But not as started as Alexis Tannenbaum, who gave a loud primal yell before firing her pistol again after her.

The Castle Arcade exploded into screams and a security alarm. Other players got up and started running before it occurred to anyone that running would just make things worse and the safer play was to get on the floor and out of the line of fire. Those crucial seconds were all Tali'Zorah had left, and she ran for the door as hard as she could.

Alexis fired four more shots, shooting wildly and cursing all the while. The first three missed completely and tore fist-sized craters out of the walls. The fifth shot sliced through the silk scarf covering Tali'Zorah's helmet and somehow triggered a radiation alarm on her HUD. Tali'Zorah slowed down just long enough to palm the door panel for the front entrance and threw herself through it, and Alex's gun fired its last shot.

Despite her expectations, the bullet passed through her arm at such a high rate of speed she didn't even feel the impact. It penetrated more like a needle than a blunt projectile, tearing a neat little hole straight through her bicep without even slowing down. The suit's pressure seals clamped down to immediately stop the bleeding and injected a local anti-biotic to the wound site; while Tali'Zorah kept running, a message on her HUD told her to apply omni-gel immediately and call the authorities to report a shooting once she was safely away.

Then the radiation alarm went off again, and the suit flashed a new message. "WARNING: LETHAL EXPOSURE. SEEK EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICE."

Tali'Zorah kept running and tuned out the sound of the radiation alarm. She darted past crowds of people milling around chatting, past a tall building that looked like a gun shop but was built like a sports stadium. She turned a corner and ran farther still, back towards the Upper Markets and around another corner, cutting through a large public space that looked like a square or a plaza of some kind. She slowed down from a spring to a brisk walk here and looked at the wound on her shoulder. Light brown Quarian blood stained the front of her suit dripping down her arm, although the pressure clamps had already closed down hard on the wound. But where the bullet had actually passed through, she saw some of the blood had started to turn pink, and the stain closest to the actual puncture was beginning to turn yellow...

 _Polonium rounds._

"Who the hell uses polonium rounds?"

 _An assassin, that's who._

"Keelah... this data must be worth more than I thought."

Again the suit flashed the message, "WARNING: LETHAL EXPOSURE. SEEK EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICE."

Where would that be, exactly? Certainly not the main hospitals. Aside from being too far away, they attracted too much attention. It's the first place an assassin would look for a wounded victim fleeing a shooting with radiation poisoning. That was half the point of polonium rounds anyway; all you had to do was wound your target, and he would either die from radiation sickness or try to run some place for treatment. The only thing worse than polonium rounds were those nasty virus-filled darts the Rachni used to fire at people...

 _Focus, Tali! Focus!_

She stopped on the side of the plaza/square/whatever and tapped an Avina console. A holographic Asari imitation appeared and began to rattle off its mindless salutations before Tali'Zorah cut it off with a terse, "I have a medical emergency and I need someone who specialized in dextro physiology!"

Avina flickered as if startled by the interruption and then responded, "The medical clinic run by Doctor Chloe Michel is equipped to treat Turian and Quarian patients. If you like, I can provide a nav point to your omni-tool."

"I do like. Please. Hurry."

"Nav point transferred. Thank you for using Avina."

Tali'Zorah looked at the nav point and groaned. Her HUD said it was almost half a kilometer away. A short walk ordinarily, but her vision was already starting to blur and she could swear there was an odd warming sensation spreading from her shoulder across the front of her chest...

Got to get there. Got to keep moving. She started up again at a run, but her legs wouldn't move as quickly as before. She had her suit inject more oxygen into her helmet, knowing as she did that she was slowly burning herself to death. Quarians got almost all of their oxygen from the colonies of cyanobacteria that lived and thrived in their lung tissue; she had, instead, just sucked down more oxygen in the past two minutes than she normally would in a day and a half. It had probably shortened her lifespan by a month, and the hangover tomorrow was going to suck...

And she breathed deeper, gulping more, driving her body harder. She had to get away. She had to escape. She had to get to safety.

She had to _get paid._

The door to the medical clinic had a simple sign above it that said "Doctor Chloe Michel" and a red cross painted on it. Tali'Zorah palmed the door control and stepped inside. A human woman with dark red hair looked up from her desk as Tali'Zorah stepped inside, then her eyes went wide with alarm as her brand new quarian patient passed out on her feet and collapsed to the floor like a coat falling off a hatrack.


	22. Chapter 21

**21 - Citadel: Gather Allies**

It was never "night" on the Presidium, despite the expectations of many races whose planets had distinct day-night cycles they were accustomed to. On the other hand, only about half of the Citadel races actually slept, and it was simple enough for those races to retreat from the Presidium at the end of a long day and seek the relative darkness and permanent night of the Wards. So in a funny kind of way, then, whether it was day or night depended entirely on where in the Citadel you happened to be standing.

Shepard knew from her heads up display - still ticking softly in her personal view - that she'd been up for nearly twenty four hours now and that the constantly refreshed adrenaline rush from all the new sights and sounds of the Citadel wouldn't last much longer. The many aliens in the Embassy had been a shock, but the biodiversity of the Presidium Commons, its shopping center, restaurants and open air bars, was more jarring by far. She saw among the crowds a half dozen species she had never actually seen before, various numbers of legs and arms, various shapes and sizes. Asari, Turians, Hanar, Salarians, Volus, Elcor. She saw a handful of four-eyed Batarians here and there, mostly dressed in religious garments and staying together in a loose knot and therefore probably pilgrims. There were four gaudily-dressed Asari flanked by two huge bipeds that looked like something out of a twenty first century horror movie: all teeth and claws and lifeless eyes and predatory features that seemed threatening even in the most innocent details. Moving indifferent to all the others were a scattering of huge insect-like creatures walking on four tripple-jointed legs and four equally tripple-jointed arms that always seemed to be busy fixing something whenever Shepard saw them.

Her wandering eyes eventually lead them to a place called Apollo's Cafe and the combined forces of exhaustion and sensory overload forced them to conclude that this was as good a place as any to regroup. Commander Shepard flashed a service kiosk with her omni-tool and the interface directed her to Table Three, which sat on a balcony overlooking the rest of the Presidium and the circular lake that wrapped the entire circumference of the ring. None of them spoke at all, just sat and listened and took it all in. The different languages, some native and some translated. The different sights and sounds and smells. The weight of it was impossible to ignore: the Citadel was the most alien place that any of them had ever been to.

So the jingle from the Future Content Network, trickling in from the next table over, seemed like a jarring incongruity in a place like this. "Why is an army of rampaging Synthetics attacking human colonies in the Attican Traverse? I'm Emily Wong, and this is your Future Content."

"They get extranet out here?" Alenko asked, incredulous.

And in a moment, the entire scene around her snapped violently into place like the heavy switch on a circuit breaker being closed. The Presidium wasn't actually that alien to her; she could have handled a foreign environment easily enough, that would have just been a matter of reserving judgement and being comfortable with one's own forgivable ignorance. But this was something different, something perverse, and it was in all the ways it wasn't alien that were throwing her off. She looked again at the four Asari maidens and their monstrous looking escorts and this time paid closer attention to what they were wearing. Sure enough, all three were wearing faux leather dresses in the same neo-Arabian style that had recently become popular on Earth. Much of the writing was in Asari and Turian script, but there was English practically everywhere, and Shepard realized most of it was gibberish; random letters and numbers thrown together in sentences that looked like words but were probably only selected because they looked meaningful. The tables and the chairs where they were sitting were brand new, and hadn't been at this cafe long enough to have stains or the minor damage one might expect from an establishment in a five thousand year old space station...

Shepard laughed at herself as she finally realized she hadn't even noticed the name of the cafe - Apollo's - despite the fact that it was run by a pair of Turians who probably had only a vague idea what "Apollo" even meant. A vending machine next to the bar drew attention to itself with a backlit icon in the shape of a cheeseburger and a fountain drink cup that would have been absolutely meaningless even on Earth, let alone to aliens who had never sold those items at fast food restaurants in their past and therefore never had that combination of symbols grandfathered in to their cultural lexicon.

But the Extranet connection was the last straw, the last obvious clue that helped her put it all together. Shepard slapped her palms on the table and smiled as she realized, "They're bored."

Alenko and Williams both looked at her with blank expressions, wondering if they had missed something she'd been saying earlier.

"How long has it been since the Asari discovered the Citadel?" Shepard asked, "About three thousand years? And the Salarians, the Volus and the Elcor not long after that. The Turians joined in about a thousand years ago. And the Batarians was... what? A hundred years ago?"

"Yeah?" Williams said, "What's your point?"

"Put a bunch of totally alien cultures together in one place. Have them all eat the same food, share the same spaces, use the same services. What's going to happen eventually? They're going to compromise. They're going to meet a halfway point that works best for all of them. A standard way of doing things. A unified galactic culture."

Williams perked up a little, "And they all start doing things the same thing. Borrowing from each other, taking each other's traditions..."

"Exactly. Eventually, they all fall into the same super pattern. And in most cases they're already post-singularity, so all the usual optimization processes lead to the same conclusions. So after a century or two of rapid change and creativity, you get hundreds and hundreds of years where they do everything the exact same way..." Shepard looked up, seeing as if for the first time the constant stream of air cars flying through the sky. She had noticed it earlier but hadn't actually registered it before: despite slightly different paint jobs on most, all of the air cars had exactly the same design. There was only one kind of air car on the Citadel, just like there was only one kind of everything else here.

"And then they meet a new species," Shepard went on, her eyes widening, "Someone who's never been to the Citadel. Someone who isn't optimized yet. Someone who hasn't been indoctrinated into the 'normal' way of doing everything. The newcomers do things differently because they aren't constrained by centuries of tradition and machine optimization. They're still trying new things, and they've come to different conclusions. Maybe they have some things nobody ever thought of before because nobody ever thought it was a good idea, or couldn't optimize it, or just an accident of culture and history. Either way... it's new. It's fresh. It's a break from the monotony. And once they see something new, they go crazy over it."

Williams and Alenko looked around, and Shepard saw the circuits close in their minds too. They looked again, and now they saw. An entire alien society from dozens of alien races from dozens of totally alien cultures, all mapped onto a rough skeleton of what they thought a human city might look like. They had borrowed human-esque styles for things in both glaring and subtle ways, with obvious imitations standing proudly next to genuine imports.

"So you're saying nothing changes here for hundreds of years," Williams said slowly, "Then we show up..."

"Think about new trends back on Earth," Alenko said, "Hair styles, clothing styles, urban fashion... remember that time Diana Allers was running around on the beach with that horrible swimdress? Spring break after that, everybody was in swimdresses."

"We're in the news," Shepard said, "We're drawing attention, making a fuss, and drawing people's curiosity. We're hip and trendy, so everyone's imitating us."

"That's... weird, Ma'am."

"No. What's weird is the fact that most humans don't realize the extranet was invented by the Salarians."

"What?" Alenko squinted at her, "No it wasn't. Humans had extranet since the twenty first century. Hell, since before we had space travel. It's the whole reason we started building space ships, wasn't it? So we could repair the relay satellites that broadcast extranet data..."

"We had something similar to it, but it wasn't extranet. Whatever we used to have, we abandoned it pretty quick when we found out extranet was a thing. And it was the same reason then. Because we suddenly had access to new forms of entertainment from alien sources all around the galaxy. It was new, it was fresh, it was unexpected. People loved it."

Williams asked with a look of dread, "So once the novelty wears off and we're just another one of the riffraff, what'll happen to us?"

"I don't think that's a straightforward question," Shepard said, "I think a lot of that depends on what we do and how we do it. So we'd better perform while we're in the spotlight if we want this all to go well for us."

On a flash of inspiration, Chief Williams opened her omni-tool, logged into the local wireless extranet, and splashed the FCC news feed onto a hologram on the table. The video stalled for a minute while the computer buffered its content and a Salarian waiter quietly and politely placed a hand terminal between them with a drink menu. Alenko browsed through it while the video loaded and glanced up only when it got to the part they had already heard.

"Why is an army of rampaging Synthetics attacking human colonies in the Attican Traverse? I'm Emily Wong, and this is your Future Content." Dramatic news jingle, but understated; small portable news feeds like this tended not to overdramatize themselves and let people relax and take their updates one bit at a time. A short montage of images showed a cruiser maneuvering in space, two Asari in leather jackets plowing their way through thick foliage somewhere, and a shot of the Citadel Council - though not the actual Councilors in power today - having a very animate discussion with one very agitated Krogan who, at the end of the clip, suddenly lunged at them in the beginning of a charge.

Emily Wong returned to the screen in front of an animated backdrop that showed a combination of stock footage and raw footage from whatever she was talking about, giving some context to her words. As she spoke, the backdrop image expanded and then eclipsed her; most of the images were stock footage from Feros Colony before the attack, juxtaposed with footage from Eden Prime and the attack on Elysium. "After days of stonewalling, the ExoGeni Corporation has now confirmed that the pilot colony on Feros is under attack by Geth forces. This follows witness accounts of massive casualties following the destruction of the North Point, New Hollywood and Alpha Ziggurat arcologies. They also indicate that colonial resistance continues at the settlements of Zhu's Hope, South Point and Foundation. Casualties from this attack are expected to be very high, as the ancient Prothean architecture is not nearly as stable as its counterparts on Eden Prime and Elysium."

Shepard hadn't seen the footage from Elysium, so she watched the footage with rapt attention. From what she could tell, the attacks there hadn't been nearly as intense as the fighting on Eden Prime, and had also been opposed by a larger military force. Probably a raid then, she thought. Or a diversionary attack to draw Alliance reinforcements away from their real target.

The streaming images shifted again, and this time the scenes were far more familiar. Shepard recognized clips from Chief Williams' distress call, from the fighting around the colony's huge arcologies, and even - briefly - a glimpse of herself from what must have been a bystander near the spaceport. "Due of the attacks on Elysium and Eden Prime, Alliance colonial backers Ariake Technologies, Kasa Fabrications and Elkoss Combine have pulled support for future colonies. While officials insist that the wide scale damage on Eden Prime was an isolated case, colonial investors say they cannot support future expansion until they are convinced that Alliance Colonies will be protected. As a result, colonial enrollment has fallen sharply."

"They say elements of the seventh fleet have been deployed to Shanxi," Alenko said. He was reading an extranet text site on his omni-tool, only half-listening to the FCC feed, "And the Fourth's been moved to the Armstrong Nebula."

"Nothing from the fifth fleet?" Williams asked, "I mean, it's their own back yard, you'd think they'd be mobilized first."

"Fifth fleet is massing at Arcturus for a counter attack, just as soon as somebody figures out where the Geth are operating from," Shepard said. "And meanwhile, the third's been deployed to Eden Prime. They're coordinating relief efforts for the colony and mopping up any pockets of Geth stragglers."

Williams asked, "Hard to have a counter attack when their top commander is literally reading all of our mail."

Alenko frowned, "Saren's days are numbered. Just you watch, Gunny."

...

...

Even though the light level never dimmed, Shepard judged it was getting late by the time the three of them started making their way back to the the docking bay. She'd expected that the passing of hours would change the makeup of who and what came out and at what time, but clearly this was mistaken. The same mixture of humans, Asari, Elcor and Volus were everywhere, with a scattering of Turians in C-Sec uniforms and a few salarians minding ships and booths. The browsed the kiosks at stores along the way, looking at the selections of designer clothes and air cars, jackets, lingerie, body armor, field gear, weapons, parts and even cybernetic enhancements.

It was all a bit much. It was all a bit too much. And so, it was all just background noise, something her brain filtered out because she couldn't relate to any of it or assign meaning to it. The shops, the streets, the sights and sounds all blurred together until Shepard became dimly aware of two things: first, that she had been awake for almost twenty straight hours now, and second, that she had somehow returned to the Citadel Embassies and was shuffling around in the lobby again, back where she'd started. She hadn't blacked out, exactly, but she had been walking at something like auto-pilot for several minutes now and had reached a part of the embassy close to Councilor Udina's office when she finally came back to herself.

Except it wasn't Udina's office. It was a sealed pressure door across from his office, almost directly across the hall, one that stubbornly refused to open after after she tapped the door control. Stranger still, the access icon - the visual halucination superimposed on her personal field of view - by her implants - showed the door was "restricted" with a dark red icon over the center of it. Nothing identified what this door was or what it led to, and yet Shepard had the sense that there was something incredibly important inside of it...

"Commander," Captain Anderson said behind her. He'd been standing there for a few moments, actually, probably wondering about her preoccupation with that door.

It wasn't the door. It was what was behind it that interested her. "Whose office is this? And why is it locked?"

"This?" He gestured at the door and tapped the door control. The control beeped angrily, denying him access without explaining why. "This is the Spectre's Command Center. It's not exactly their headquarters, per se, but it is a physical location where Spectres on the Citadel can coordinate their resources in a more secure environment."

"Is it weird that it's directly across from Udina's office?" and

Anderson grinned, "When the Asari first discovered the Citadel, this room contained the station's only working communications beacon. Those Asari explorers learned most of the Citadel's secrets from that beacon. In the days before the Salarians and the Citadel Conventions, this was the station's main headquarters. It's a place of great historical significance, which is probably why the Spectres use it as their command center. The thing is, when Earth signed the conventions Saren publicly opposed our being granted en embassy, and then insisted for security reasons we be given an office as far as possible from the Spectre office. The council's response was to give us this office, directly across the hall."

Shepard laughed, "Why? Just to piss him off?"

"Probably as a rebuke. They didn't like his attitude. Saren was already started to get too involved in politics, and this would have set a bad precedent. So now Udina gets to hear his angry snarl every time he goes in there. Which is, actually, pretty rare nowadays."

Shepard filed this away for later. Apparently, even the Council's "top agents" couldn't get away with mouthing off to them. "Well what kind of stuff do they have in there?" she asked, "Do they still have the beacon?"

"That was moved out for study centuries ago. Right now, they've got some hammocks, a firing range, and some of the best computers on the Citadel. Not much beyond that. But what makes the Spectres isn't their equipment or their weapons. It's the people."

"Hammock sounds nice," Shepard said, feeling the sag in her shoulders. Twenty hours awake and it was still broad daylight on the Citadel; it reminded her of Akuze with its week-long days, or Rayingiri, where the sun only set every few hours when its companion planet eclipsed it. "I'm gonna head back to the ship and get some rack time. Maybe the Council will be ready by tomorrow?"

"Possibly. Alenko and Williams left half an hour ago. Mind if I share a cab?"

"Honored, Sir."

The no-longer-dreamlike walk back through the lobby to the elevator just made a contrast to her original entry. Anderson hit the controls to call the lift and the doors opened immediately, the car already waiting for them. Thirty seconds later they were on the roof at the taxi stand, and thirty seconds after that they were lifting into the air on a mass effect field generated by yet another of the Citadel's million identical air cars. Like most taxis, the car was driven by a VI so Anderson and Shepard sat in the front seat and watched the curved/rolled landscape of the Presidium roll by around them. And as the cab eased into the flying traffic pattern, Shepard asked, "What did you mean before? About Saren getting involved in politics?"

Anderson nodded, processing the question. "Spectres enjoy wide latitude in how they carry out their missions and how they use their resources. Most of them have their own ships, crews, safe houses, supply stashes. Some of them even own private investigating firms that help manage their contacts. That's a development that's been controversial in the past, but the Council tolerates it up to a point. But Saren takes that many steps farther. He has personal connections with politicians in Citadel space and some of the worst dictators in the Terminus Systems. He's done business with Vito Santiago, Gatatog Uvenk, Elanos Haliat, even Aria T'lok on occasion. He has his own private army he sometimes calls to do his dirty work, and while he theoretically only deploys those mercenaries to carry out his missions, there's no legal restriction in place that would prevent him from using them however he wants. More than that, he has major investments in biotech companies and arms manufacturers, which makes him one of the wealthiest individuals on the Citadel's payroll. And with all that power, he's developed a habit of... persuading local governments to get them to cooperate with his aims."

"He sounds more like a gangster than a government agent."

"The Spectres are not your typical government agency. They tend to work alone, behind the scenes. They take care of problems the Council can't. It's not easy preserving peace across an entire galaxy. The Council prefers to use diplomacy and negotiation, but sometimes more extreme measures are needed."

"Yeah, but the way you make it sound, Saren could overthrow the governments of entire countries if he thought he needed to."

"Could and has. That's what makes him the Council's top agent. He can do some things most people think are impossible."

"How did he become a Spectre in the first place? Was he this powerful before he signed up?"

"You can't just apply to join, there's no training program. The Spectres recruit exceptional individuals with rare skill sets who can get the job done. People like you, basically. They've been watching you for years."

"Me?" Shepard looked at him in surprise.

"They see something in you. They want you on their side. Nihlus was supposed to give them a final recommendation, but with him gone things are still up in the air."

She hadn't really put that much thought into Nihlus' evaluation mission until now. The battle at Eden Prime had pushed all of that to the back of her mind. But now that she thought about it... "What's their command structure like?"

"There is no command structure. Each Spectre answers directly to the Council. Sometimes they're sent on a specific mission, sometimes they act on their own initiative. They tend to work outside the law, do whatever it takes to accomplish their goals. The Council turns a blind eye, sanctions their actions based purely on their results. In fact, if Eden Prime hadn't been a human colony, Saren wouldn't even have anything to hide. Spectres have massacred entire colonies just to keep Terminus pirates from getting their hands on Prothean tech."

"Jesus Christ..."

Anderson nodded, "Spectres have a lot of power, Shepard."

"They sound like... Shadow operatives or something."

"Everything about them is classified. We don't even know how many there are. The latest Alliance estimate puts their numbers just under a hundred. But the Council couldn't do its job without them. They're the Citadel's top agents. They can solve problems before they become wars, and they end wars before they become genocides. The entire galaxy respects and fears them. If a Spectre shows up, you know shit just got real."

"What normally happens when a Spectre goes rogue? Like Saren?"

Anderson shrugged, "It happens very rarely. The Council is extremely careful in how they select their candidates. But when something does go wrong, they send the other Spectres to bring the rogue one down."

"The others? Meaning a task force?"

"Meaning all of them. The Spectres won't tolerate betrayal among their ranks. If one of them goes bad, they deal with it. And consider the kind of people in the Spectres... imagine one hundred of the deadliest people in the known galaxy all being pissed at you at once."

"I think I see why the Council doesn't give them that much oversight..."

"Democracy by gunfire," Anderson said, nodding, "What's the term for that... Stratocracy? That's how the Turians govern their entire society."

"Bet you I can guess who the first Spectres were," Shepard said.

Anderson grinned, "As a matter of fact, for the first five decades after formation they were almost all Salarians."

"Okay... I would not have guessed that."

The air car took a sharp right and then veered into the little alcove in the wall that contained the C-Sec landing pads. The building below and the Presidium's retaining wall both anchored the docking ports that held the Normandy and whatever other priority vessels had docked at the Citadel since then.

The car landed with a thud and then its cockpit parted open like a flower in bloom. Two C-Sec officers - a Turian and a Salarian in navy blue combat armor - scanned them wordlessly to check their IDs, then turned and walked off to check the next arriving cab at the landing pad next to it.

Shepard said nothing as they walked through the open atrium of C-Sec headquarters, and stayed quiet on the lift to the docking port. The question occurred to her halfway through the ride, and she found the words finally only once they'd returned to the dock and the long, slender needle of the Normand's hull was stretched out in front of them, waiting for their return. "Permission to speak candidly, Captain."

Anderson walked across the gangplank to the Normandy's airlock and touched the controls to open the outer hatch. "We're off duty, Shepard. Hit me."

"I'm sensing you and Saren have a history, Sir. Mind telling me what happened?"

Anderson stepped inside, followed by Shepard. The outer door hissed shut, and a high-energy decontamination beam started to sweep the airlock, back and forth across them as Anderson answered,"About twenty years ago, I was part of a mission in the Skyllian Verge. I was working with Saren to find and remove a known terrorist threat. Saren eliminated his target, but a lot of innocent people died along the way. And the official records just covered it all up. But I saw how he operates back then. No conscience. No hesitation. He'd kill a thousand innocent people to end a war with no second thought."

"You realize, don't you, that that kind of choice is sometimes necessary if-"

"I know how the world works, Commander. Sometimes you're forced to make unpleasant decisions. But Saren isn't forced to take that option, he prefers it. He's twisted and broken. He enjoys the violence and the bloodshed, and he knows well enough to cover his tracks."

"Decontamination complete," announced Normandy's VI. Followed a moment later by an announcement on the ship's PA from Navigator Presley, "Captain on deck!"

The inner door hissed open, and Anderson snapped a crisp salute to the two marines guarding it as he said, "At ease" and walked on past them.

Shepard fell into step behind him, getting the sense that Anderson was at least as tired as she was right now. The fact that Normandy was now in full gravity and thus felt amazingly cramped probably wasn't helping matters. "Ambassador Udina doesn't seem to get along with the Council."

"He's just frustrated," Anderson said, walking aft towards the Captain's cabin, "The Council's been drilling it into us that we need to contribute to the galactic community. But for them, it's a one-way street. They encourage us to expand and settle unstable regions like the Skyllian Verge and the Attican Traverse, because when we do that it helps expand their influence, opens new resources. But as soon as we get into trouble, that's our problem, nothing to do with them."

"So they're just using us to further their own aims..."

"No, not at all. You look back through history, you see that this is how they test new arrivals. Just by signing the conventions, we effectively doubled the size of Citadel space overnight, and we've already shown we can hold that territory against opposition. Everyone knows it's only a matter of time now before we get a seat on the Council. The Ambassador just thinks it should happen sooner rather than later, and I don't disagree." Anderson paused at the hatch to his quarters, but didn't open the door yet. "And he's frustrated with you because this business at Eden Prime is just another setback. It's another distraction we don't need or deserve."

"Do you think the Council would be less hesitant if we were more willing to cooperate with other species?"

"Of course they would. If we did everything they told us, they'd love to have us on the Council. But it wouldn't be much of a deal for us." Anderson hit the controls for his cabin and leaned against the doorway. "Look, I understand their side. They don't want us dominating the Council. It's founded on cooperation and alliances going back centuries. But we have to look after our own interests too. Even as a Spectre, that's a fine line you would have to learn how to walk."

"I'll take that to heart, Sir. You've given me something to think about."

Anderson nodded, but at this point he was too tired to care either way. "Get some rest, Commander."

"Good night, Captain," Shepard said, and saluted him. Anderson saluted back, and then closed the door.


	23. Chapter 22

**22 - Citadel: Council Politics**

It was somehow a little disorienting that the Presidium's light level was exactly the same as it was when Shepard left the place the day before. Her HUD told her that ten hours had gone by, that she'd gotten at least seven hours of sleep, and that right now in Vancouver it was a little after five in the morning with sunrise expected in forty five minutes. But a body that felt like dawn facing an atmosphere that pretended it was midday just gave the Presidium away for the artificial false palace that it really was, and somehow this made her wary.

Or maybe it was the monolith of Citadel Tower, reaching up from the ground in the middle of the Presidium Lake, right up through the middle of the false sky. Two Turian soldiers in heavy armor stood at the base of the tower, guarding the three tube elevators that lead up to the "top" of the tower. Shepard had learned, of course, that it wasn't the "top" so much as the highest point in the tower that anyone other than the Keepers were able to reach; no one had ever been able to find passages or access hatches to the interior of the tower any higher than that, although penetrating radar scans confirmed that the place was practically swarming with Keepers. The current theory was that the Keepers came and went by quickly building and then dismantling doorways in the upper part of the tower and only moved in or out of it on rare occasions. Needless to say, this was more likely than not to be the primary control center for the Citadel itself, the place where the Keepers coordinated all the systems that the Council didn't have access to.

The two Turian guards scanned them as they came into the hall and waved them through to the elevators. Shepard saw there were no buttons to push and no floors to call. There was only one other place to go in the Citadel tower, and this elevator was designed to take them straight there.

"They're not gonna ask me any questions, are they Commander?"

Lieutenant Alenko answered for her, "We'll let Ambassador Udina do the talking this time. We have to trust his judgement on this one."

Williams, deadpan, answered loud and clear, "No we don't, El Tee."

Despite herself, Shepard chuckled.

The elevator stopped, and the doors opened to a dimly lit airlock that opened to a narrow walkway with high, curved walls and soft LED lighting. Twenty meters ahead of them, the walkway terminated at a short flight of stairs that lead up to a lobby or platform or park of some kind. Two Turians were standing at the top of those stairs, speaking - or rather, shouting - in Pythic. Shepard knew enough of the Turian language to follow most of it, but this was being spoken with the tenor of a machinegun salvo, which to her untrained ear meant that she was hearing a very violent argument.

With Alenko and Williams in tow, she walked slowly up the stairs to avoid interrupting them and listened carefully. One of the two was wearing a blue and grey C-Sec uniform and what looked like a heavily modified Kuwasashi visor on his head, while the other was wearing a dark blue and red business suit and an angry scowl that seemed to have been surgically fixed to the front of his skull. She had her hardsuit computer translate for her in adaptive captions, but her ears could already make out the gist of it. "Utos sa'ses gats Saren! Zas du'nna! Massada dakos!"

Saren is hiding something! I need more time! Stall them!

"Dakos Farilksen?" The grumpy one folded his arms, "Tama dekalches. Tus krasen se'tus se'alos, Garrus."

Stall the Council? Don't be ridiculous. Your investigation is over, Garrus.

They carried on for a few more minutes, arguing back and forth, until the one in the suit said something Shepard couldn't translate and the junior officer went stiff, saluted, and watched him walk away.

Turians, Shepard thought, were an interesting bunch. Their language didn't even have a word for 'civilians' until they met the Salarians, and the idea of a non-combatant citizen was so strange to them that their culture that many of them still struggled with it centuries later. As she'd heard it told, the Turians were a species made up entirely of Marines: every one was a rifleman, every one of them fell into some chain of command or another. The family was a squad; children were recruits, parents were noncoms and grandparents too old to get directly involved with day to day life were officers. Everything from cooking meals to full scale war was conducted along the lines of military discipline, because to a Turian, everything they did was part of the larger war effort.

The only thing that made them tolerable was the fact that they were, in the end, just like any other Marines, with all the usual gripes against the chain of command, and the usual need to blow off steam. There was a mutual respect between what passed for a Turian "civilian" and a typical Alliance grunt; they recognized each other, even if they didn't know why. Shepard saw this recognition in the C-Sec officer the moment he turned to face her, and it was familiar enough that neither of them even questioned. "Commander Shepard," he said, and saluted, "Sergeant Garrus Vakarian. I was in charge of the C-Sec investigation into Saren."

"Good to meet you, Sergeant. I'm gathering you didn't get very far?"

"Unfortunately, no. The Council hit me with enough red tape to smother a neutron star. I've got nothing on that barefaced bastard."

Barefaced. Shepard didn't know a lot about Turian language or culture, but she knew there were fewer insults more vicious than that. "Sounded like you really want to bring him down."

"I don't trust him. Everything about him rubs me the wrong way. Circumstantial evidence tells me he's dirty. But he's a Spectre, everything he touches is classified. I can't find any hard evidence."

Shepard nodded, and folded her arms, "Not a good sign..."

"Come on," Alenko said, "I think the Council's ready for us, Commander.

"Good luck, Shepard," Vakarian said, "Maybe they'll listen to you."

Shepard saluted him back and moved on. The largish lobby/park area wrapped around water jet fountain built into the center of a decorative pond; the rising jet shot upwards on a strange, curving angle that looped out over the deck before reversing course and spiraling back down into the pond, giving the water jet the appearance of a cobra standing on its tail. Shepard thought for a moment this was some trick of mass effect fields or magnetism, until she remembered that this high up in the Citadel Tower the coriolis effect had a pronounced distortion of local gravity. Things didn't just fall down, they tended to fall slightly sideways and spin. This high up, they were already at just over one-fourth of a G, and if she climbed any higher she knew it would soon drop low enough that they would have to bunny hop across the walkways like armor-plated kangaroos.

Another flight of stairs greeted them on the other side of the pond, and then another. A wide, circular atrium met them at the top of these, a cluster of large dull grey stones like debris from ancient ruins scattered amidst several beautiful, exotically scented fruit trees. A catwalk off to either side formed a kind of hallway for doors and offices with labels in Pythic, Armalic, Irunic Standard and English and labeled each one. Finance. Technology. Enforcement. Heritage. The Citadel Council, Shepard knew, was something called a Cascade Democracy; a petition might gather enough signatures to become a diplomatic request, at which point an ambassador would request sponsorship from the auditors related to a subject; if the Auditors thought the request was reasonable, they and the ambassador would try to convince a committee, and if the committee agreed with the request they would, all together, present the request to the Council. If the request survived that long, the argument went, it probably had some merit that the Council would have to weigh against any potential negatives.

And of course, there were always negatives, and there was always someone there to present them. Your ambassador might request permission to drill for oil on the Volus homeworld, but the Volus ambassador would be sure to argue against it - likely successfully - before the full Council ever got to hear the pros or cons of it.

"You sure have to climb a lot of stairs to reach the Council," Alenko said, and Shepard realized she'd been thinking exactly that in more abstract terms. "You think that's supposed to be symbolic of their importance?"

"Could be," Williams said, "But all these stairs and high cover... probably make for good defensive positions if anyone ever tried to storm this place."

Which was also true, Shepard realized. In every sense, in every possible context, it was a long climb to reach the Council, whatever you intended to do with them.

At the end of the atrium, yet another row of stairs, this one so wide and so tall it reminded Shepard of the bleacher seating at a football stadium. But the landing at the top of these stairs ran straight into a planter wall with more of those beautiful trees growing out of them, and the final climb to the Council chamber was a single, narrow stairway that lead to an equally narrow balcony hanging over the middle of a huge open-air atrium that seemed to contain an artificial forest complete a meadow, trees, groves and a small stream. Shepard couldn't guess at the purpose of it, except that it formed a real as well as psychological barrier between the Council and anyone who might have come to visit them.

Captain Anderson was standing at the bottom of the final stairwell and waved Shepard and the others over to join him. "The hearing's already started. Come on."

Shepard followed him up the stairs and into the vast open space, the high vaulted cathedral of the Council chambers reminding her of the field house of a vast sports complex.

The three Councilors stood at waist-high standing workstations across the atrium with their backs to a line of enormous windows that looked out on the whole of the Citadel. Holographic display windows the size of billboards floated around in the room, angled to be easily legible by everyone involved. Ambassador Udina stood at the end of the balcony, his hands busy at a workstation manipulating the data in the air around them. A paused video, recorded from Shepard's hardsuit, showed the dock worker who had first identified Saren, frozen mid-sentence in frame. The two scientists from the excavation camp were in another window, the slightly deranged Doctor Manuel cowering in the background. A still image from the Geth battleship hung off to the side, examined and seemingly forgotten for the time being, along with dozens of images of Geth troopers.

Another unexpected image, Shepard saw, were the mangled forms of the humans the Geth had impaled during the attack. She hadn't had a chance to examine them in much detail, and she soon gathered that this particular image hadn't come from her or anyone on her team. It was a detailed analysis showing not just the nature of what the creature had become - bodies almost entirely drained of blood, silicate fiber woven through muscle and bone - but an estimate of the number of colonists so transformed: 1,200±200.

And of course, there was Saren. The Turian Spectre was represented by a holographic avatar off to one side of the room, floating seemingly in mid air. In his position, it almost looked like he was mediating a dispute between Udina and the Council, with all the information from Eden Prime displayed directly across from him for his scrutiny. This was not a good sign either, but Shepard couldn't tell if it meant anything.

"And yet you cannot ignore that no other proposed motivation fits any predictive model of their behavior," Udina was saying as Anderson and Shepard stepped up quietly behind him, "They did not stop to collect resources, and they made no attempt to hold territory when our reinforcements arrived! It is obvious, in view of all the facts, that the Geth force's true objective was to gain access to the Prothean Beacon!"

Tevos, the Asari Councilor, shook her head, "The Geth attack is a matter of serious concern. But I see nothing here that implicates Commander Saren's involvement in the attack."

"The investigation by Citadel Security turned up no evidence to support your charge of treason," Councilor Spartus added, wearing a suit very similar to Garrus Vakarian's senior officer.

Ambassador Udina took a breath, steadied himself. "Councilors, an eyewitness saw him kill Nihlus in cold blood!"

Valern, the Salarian Councilor, answered, "Which, as we have conceded, is reason enough for suspicion. But the testimony of one traumatized dock worker is not by itself sufficient for a finding of guilt. And even if Saren did kill Nihlus for whatever reason, that action does not prove cooperation with the Geth."

"So you're also going to ignore the scans of the Geth dreadnought, which multiple witnesses have identified as Saren Arturius' personal flagship?"

Valern's eyes narrowed, "You are in error, Ambassador. Witnesses have stated the design is similar to the Geth warship. We have no direct confirmation that the vessel is the same type operated by Commander Saren, let alone that Saren's vessel was near Eden Prime at the time."

"Not that you've actually tried!" Udina thundered, his emotions pouring out of him now, "You haven't even confirmed Saren's present location, let alone his whereabouts four months ago! How can you discard the witness accounts without verifying them for yourself?"

The Council stirred at this. Shepard realized Udina had just echoed something they'd discussed among themselves, and it was an issue that remained unresolved even now. That's interesting...

"Commander Saren has cited operational security in keeping his exact location and the specifications of his vessel off the official record," Tevos said, "The Council is reluctant to compel the release of that information without a very good reason. It is, as you might understand, a very dangerous precedent to set if we allow operational security to be compromised by unfounded accusations of wrongdoing. It could undermine the entire Spectre program."

"No one is asking you to release the information publicly," Udina said, "But answer me this: has Saren even provided the _Council_ with those specifications?"

Tevos looked at Spartus, and Spartus glanced back. Shepard caught it again, and a chill ran down her spine. She leaned closer to Anderson and whispered, "He refused."

Anderson whispered back, "What?"

"I'm guessing they ordered Saren to give them the specs for his ship so they could compare it to our report. Saren must have refused."

"How can you tell that?"

"It's what's got them so anxious. Look at Tevos. She's a pragmatist, so she wants to give Saren the benefit of the doubt. But Spartus is hardliner, conservative Turian. He doesn't like the idea of Saren refusing a direct order. And Valern..." she looked at the Salarian councilor, whose expression was unreadable, but his silence was broadcasting what his words never could. "Valern thinks they're both right and can't make up his mind. He wants to be convinced, but neither side's doing it for him."

"What do you think..." Anderson trailed off as Saren's holographic avatar spoke up from its corner of the room.

"The Council already has my full report, and it cannot be discussed openly. All that should matter to you is that my current assignment is of the utmost importance to the Citadel Conventions. I warn you again, Councilors, that those who stand in opposition to galactic peace can and will use this investigation to hinder my work."

Valern spoke him, caution in his voice, "Not to discuss details, Commander, but we both know you are over-selling the importance of your present assignment. I for one would prefer a more complete explanation for your refusal to disclose the requested information."

Shepard nudged Anderson and whispered, "You see?"

"I'll be damned..." The look on Anderson's face said it all. He'd known, intellectually, that Saren was responsible for Eden Prime, but the fact hadn't struck him on a visceral level until just now. Even through the hologram, the sense of menace around him had become palpable.

"I resent these accusations, and I find that request deeply offensive. I have served this Council for thirty five years, and now I stand accused of treason by people who have demonstrated no loyalty or dedication to the Citadel Conventions whatsoever. I have no intention of compromising myself to satisfy the egos of such people."

"It is not their ego you should be concerned with," Spartus said, "Nihlus may have been killed by another Turian. I would think you would be more eager to cooperate with an investigation into the identity of the culprit."

"I am capable of investigating that matter on my own, and I intend to do exactly that. Nihlus was a fellow Spectre, and a friend."

Captain Anderson surged forward, stepping into the vacuum behind Ambassador Udina, "That just let you catch him off guard!"

Saren's avatar turned and his eyes seemed to flare like a pair of floodlights. "Captain Anderson. You always seem to be involved when humanity makes false accusations against me. And this must be your protege, Commander Shepard. The one who let the Beacon be destroyed rather than recover it for the galactic community."

Shepard stepped forward as well, and felt the eyes of the entire room fall on her. The Councilors lapsed into silence, watching the exchange carefully. "The mission to Eden Prime was top secret. The only way you could know about the beacon was if you were there."

Saren folded his arms, "After Nihlus' death, his files passed on to me. I read the Eden Prime report. I was unimpressed. But what can you expect from a human?"

"You can expect me to kill you the next time we meet."

Udina's head snapped around like a gun turret, "Commander, that's-"

"I expect you to try," Saren snarled, "In fact, I demand it! It would be an abject lesson for all your kind!"

"What lesson would that be?" Anderson asked.

"Humility, Captain. Your species needs to learn its place. You're not ready to join the galactic community, and you're certainly not cut out to join the Spectres."

Udina's nostrils flared, "He has no right to say that! That's not his decision."

Tevos nodded, "Shepard's candidacy for the Spectres is not the purpose of this hearing, Commander."

"This hearing has no purpose! The humans are wasting your time, Councilor. And mine."

"You can't hide behind the Council forever, Saren..."

"There is still one outstanding issue," Anderson added, "Commander Shepard's vision. It may have been triggered by her contact with the Prothean Beacon."

Saren snorted, "Are we allowing dreams into evidence now? How can I defend my innocence against this kind of testimony?"

"I agree," said Spartus, "Our judgement must be based on hard facts and evidence, not imagination and speculation."

"Accepted," Valern said, "Do you have anything else to add, Captain Anderson? Commander Shepard?"

Shepard shook her head, "You've made your decision. I won't waste my breath."

Tevos glanced at Valern, just for a moment. The Salarian Councilor shook his head, and Tevos straightened. "Ambassador Udina, the Council finds insufficient evidence of cooperation between Saren and the Geth. Your petition to have him disbarred from the Spectres is denied."

"I'm glad to see justice was served," Saren said. His avatar disappeared.

Tevos went on, "This hearing is adjourned."


	24. Chapter 23

**23 - Pilgrimage: Let's try a different approach**

She'd been awake for at least an hour. She'd been too tired to do anything about it, though, except sluggishly take stock of her surroundings and be thankful to be alive. Her muscles ached and her skin tingled from the aftermath of oxygen poisoning and her right arm was wrapped in a partial cast that was filled with a layer of medi gel. The suspension bed she was laying in had an injection cuff wrapped around her left arm and two double-armed waldos attached to a circular frame hung above her, ready to poke and prod and manipulate her at a moment's notice, and beyond all that was a transparency that sat in the middle of a room that looked as much like a fancy suite room as a medical clinic.

And still Tali'Zorah was too tired to do anything about it except lay there and be happy to be alive.

Maybe it was more than an hour? Maybe it was less. Either way, the arrival of the red headed human female finally gave her something to focus on other than walls, glass and the occasional prick of a needle pushing something too cold or too warm into her veins.

The red headed doctor opened her omni-tool and a fan of laser light swept across her through the glass. The Doctor said something Tali'Zorah didn't understand, and one of the robotic arms unfolded from its cradle and swing into position next to her shoulder. Another, more narrow fan of scanning beams danced across the wound and the machine made a satisfied beeping sound.

Somehow, after nearly an hour lying in this machine, Tali'Zorah was only just now realizing that her helmet was off and that the entire right arm of her suit had been removed, exposing the skin beneath. She felt a sting of fresh anger at the Doctor for removing her helmet without permission, then a stab of fear for what contamination might have found its way into her system in the process...

"Oh, you're awake," said the Doctor, just moments after her patient finally turned to look at her. Anger and fear both faded to gentle amusement.

 _Of course. She can't see me._ The glass enclosure was transparent to quarians, but humans couldn't see in ultraviolet, and so the Doctor probably couldn't see anything except a shadowy outline and the glow from Tali'Zorah's eyes. Clearing her throat, she sat up as much as the machines would allow and answered, "I've been awake for a while. I don't remember falling asleep though."

"I'm not surprised. You passed out as soon as you came through the door. Acute radiation poisoning. Your body absorbed about four times the lethal dose."

Tali'Zorah remembered the old woman with the hidden pistol. She remembered the dull sting of a polonium round tearing right through her shoulder. The spreading warmth, the feeling of nausea creeping in behind the oxygen high... "How badly am I hurt? Can you tell me that?"

"You know what? Questions like that... it's exactly why I came to the Citadel. On my home planet, if someone came in with a bullet wound, five different specialists would have to give an opinion on it. You'd be waiting for blood tests, magnetic resonance imagery, x-rays, neurofunction tests, and you'd be slated for observation for at least two days. You would also be on administrative hold for three more days pending psychiatric evaluation to make sure the wound hadn't caused a post-traumatic perception fracture. But here on the Citadel, we have a medical expert system with detailed files on the physiology and psychology of every species known to the galaxy. We have predictive algorithms that have been carefully refined over the last thousand years to tell us exactly what will probably happen in the next forty eight hours to someone in your position. I don't have to guess and I don't have to cover my ass in case you decide to sue me. I can have the computer examine you and make a prognosis and compare that to my own observations and see if my judgement is accurate or not. And in this case, my judgement is that, with a few day's rest you're going to be good as new. That's assuming, of course, that nobody shoots you again."

It was a long answer to a perfectly straightforward question, but Tali'Zorah realized it was an answer to a great many questions she would have wound up asking later. Chief among these were "Do human doctors know how to treat quarian patients" and also "Will there be any long term damage that might affect my pilgrimage?" These issues she could skirt past now. The Doctor had consulted the expert system and the Citadel's database, and if there was any cause for worry she probably would have mentioned it right away.

So she instead moved on to the next issue of concern. "When can I leave?"

"The medi-gel application hasn't fully set yet. Another twelve hours or so. You're going to experience some numbness soon if you haven't already. Once that goes away, you'll be ready to go. Speaking of which, how's the light level in there? Do you need more?"

The little UV lamp in the panel above her... Tali'Zorah had barely noticed it. The level was pretty low, but since there was nothing much to see outside the chamber she hadn't given it much thought. "Could use a little more."

"I'll give you environmental controls so you can adjust what you like. Temperature is in celsius and not kelvins. Sorry for that."

"I won't adjust the temperature, then..." a holographic display appeared on her left side. Awkwardly, too close to reach with her left hand, but her right arm was still both sore and slightly numb and she didn't want to risk reaching for it yet. She left it alone for now and asked, "Does anyone else know I'm here?"

The look on the doctor's face said it all, but she still managed to say aloud, "I rarely talk about my patients to anyone outside of the clinic, and I have not mentioned to anyone that I have a Quarian in an isolation pod."

"Has anyone come here looking for me?"

"Two C-Sec investigators did. Also a Krogan who claimed to be a friend of yours. Is your name Tali'Zorah, by the way? I told them both the same thing: that I would let them know if anyone matching your description came into my clinic seeking medical attention, which I haven't yet."

Tali'Zorah relaxed a bit. She hadn't even known she'd been tense. A small monitor on the wall next to the pod showed that her heart rate and blood pressure both began to rise again. "My name is Tali'Zorah nar Raya, and I'm in a whole lot of trouble."

"My name is Doctor Chloe Michel, and I am no stranger to trouble."

"Not this kind of trouble. This is serious. I need to move on as soon as I can, then. If they find out I'm here, you might be in danger too."

The doctor's eyebrow twitched, "Whoever attacked you was using polonium rounds. That's not the kind of thing any street thug would normally use. You must have pissed off someone really important."

"I'm sure I did, but I'm not sure who that someone might have been. It has something to do with the attack on Eden Prime..." Tali'Zorah got a flash of insight at this one. She wouldn't have guessed it before, but the fact that someone was trying to assassinate her to keep her quiet was a dead giveaway. It couldn't have been the Geth - they wouldn't act through a human intermediary even if they could - but that Turian with the skeletal deformity... "Actually, no. I think it has to do with someone who was working with the Geth. It must be someone pretty important."

"A turian, maybe?" Michel asked.

Tali'Zorah's eyes darted up, "Why? What have you heard?"

"There's a rumor going around that C-Sec is investigating a turian Spectre in connection with the attack on Eden Prime. There's supposed to be a hearing before the Citadel Council, although no one knows when."

"A turian Spectre?"

Michel nodded, "I don't know details, except the Spectre is someone named Saren Arterius. He's one of the top-ranked operatives in the Citadel. I've never heard of him, but he's supposed to be pretty famous."

Saren. That's what the other turian had called him before he let his guard down and got a bullet to the back of the head. Saren Arturius. A Spectre.

In this context, that entire exchange suddenly made more sense. They were both Spectres, but only one of them was supposed to be there. The other one - Saren - had come with the Geth, and hadn't known that Nihlus was anywhere in the area. He hadn't known because Nihlus' mission there must been a secret and the rest of the Spectres were on a need-to-know basis.

And he killed Nihlus, because he knew his presence there would look suspicious.

And now he was trying to kill her for the same reason.

"Wait..." Doctor Michel took a small step forward, "Were you on Eden Prime? Do you think that's why someone's after you?"

Tali'Zorah still didn't know who to trust, but if she couldn't trust the person who had saved her life... "I think that's part of it."

Michel nodded slowly, "I think you need to talk to C-Sec. Tell them what you know. They can protect you."

"No they can't. Not if the person I saw really is a Spectre. You know how those people are. They're basically above the law. If he wants me dead, there's nothing C-Sec can do to stop him."

Michel folded her arms, "That's a good point... trouble is, you're not that much safer here either. I can only hide you for so long..."

"I've been trying to get in touch with someone who works for the Shadow Broker. I have information that might be valuable if I can get it into the right hands. But if I tell anyone what I want to trade, it'll attract too much attention to me. What I need is to be able to contact the Broker directly. Cut out the middle man, and let him know exactly what I have. If I can do that, he can use his resources to protect me until the trade's been made."

Michel thought about it for a moment. Then her eyes widened a little. "I think I know just the person."


	25. Chapter 24

**24 - Citadel: Expose Saren**

Commander Shepard lost track of Ambassador Udina on the way back to his office, but it wasn't something that overly concerned her. Probably he had some diplomatic business to smooth over in the aftermath of humanity's complete humiliation before the Citadel Council, though she couldn't imagine what that might be. She also couldn't care less; it wasn't exactly Udina's fault, but he hadn't proven himself to be the pinnacle of diplomatic acumen either.

So if Udina noticed the somber mood in his office when he finally returned to it, he showed no signs of it, and it was just as well. Captain Anderson, Lieutenant Alenko and Chief Williams were all sitting at the little table in the corner while Commander Shepard stood staring out over the balcony at the Presidium outside. None of them looked up to greet him or recognized his arrival in any way, and Udina failed to notice this too. "It was a mistake bringing you into that hearing, Captain," he said as the door closed behind him, "You and Saren have too much history. It made the Council question our motives."

Anderson looked up from the table, "I know Saren. He's working with the Geth for one reason only: to exterminate the entire human race. Every colony we have is at risk, every world we control is in danger. Even Earth isn't safe."

"Then we need to deal with Saren ourselves," Shepard said.

Udina sighed, scratched his chin. There was no anger left in him, no conflict or blame. Just a problem, and the need to deal with it. "As a Spectre, he's virtually untouchable. We need to find some way to expose him."

"What about Garrus Vakarian?" Kaiden said, "That C-Sec investigator we saw arguing with the executor?"

Williams added, "It did seem like he was close to finding something on Saren. He said something about needing more time to investigate fully?"

"It couldn't hurt," Shepard said, "Any idea where we could find him?"

Udina said, "I have a contact in C-Sec who can help us track him down. His name is Harkin..."

Anderson almost choked on his spit. "Forget it. They suspended Harkin last month. Drinking on the job. I won't waste my time with that loser."

"You don't have to, Captain. I don't want the Council using your past history with Saren as an excuse to ignore anything we turn up. Shepard will handle this."

Commander Shepard turned from the balcony as if his words had been a gunshot. "Ambassador, you can't just cut the Captain out of this investigation..."

"No, Shepard, he's right. We can't afford any more setbacks. I need to step aside."

Udina didn't so much as nod at this, just took it in stride and moved on. "I need to take care of some business. Captain Anderson, meet me back here in two hours. Bring all the Eden Prime data you have and we'll see if we overlooked something. Shepard, you and your people do what you can, but please try to stay out of trouble." And then he turned to leave, as if he was trying to avoid the series of rude gestures and unflattering comments that was destined to come flying his way any second now.

"You heard the man," Anderson said, standing up slowly, "We're down twenty at half time. Better get our asses in gear."

Williams stood up as well, and Lieutenant Alenko stood up saying, "What does that expression mean? I mean, no, I know what it means, but what's it from?"

"It's an American thing... sports reference maybe. I dunno."

They followed Captain Anderson in something not totally unlike parade formation, two by two with Commander Shepard at his right hand and the Lieutenant and Chief behind them. They exchanged no words as the Captain called the elevator; the Embassay Lobby somehow seemed entirely too crowded to even breathe, let alone speak.

It sucked, but they had indeed lost this round. It wasn't painful because they'd lost - as a soldier, Shepard was prepared for this as much as anything else - it was painful because their winning or losing meant so much to so many people and yet depended on so many things totally out of their control. That feeling of helplessness wasn't something any soldier could train for or even accept. It was, in fact, probably the number one cause of so many civil wars and uprisings throughout history, when some politician or another made his own soldiers feel so utterly helpless that they would take up a weapon and murder their own leaders just to make that feeling go away...

The elevator doors opened and Captain Anderson stepped inside. Shepard and the others followed him in and then flattened themselves against the walls as the car started to move towards the roof.

"Harkin's probably gettin drunk at Chora's Den," Anderson said, "It's a dingy little club over in Zakera Ward."

"It's worth a try," Shepard said, "But we're in trouble if that's our only lead."

Anderson thought about it for a moment, "You know... you should talk to the Volus banker over in the Commons. His name's Barla Von. Rumor has it he's an agent for the Shadow Broker."

"What's a shadow broker?" Williams asked.

"They have a thing here called an Information Broker. It's like a cross between a journalist and a private eye. They buy and sell secrets to the highest bidder. The Shadow Broker isn't the most famous, but he is the most prolific, and Barla Von is one of his top representatives."

"So he might have information about Saren."

"He might," said Anderson, "He specializes in moving large sums of money without leaving a paper trail. A financial genius. Doesn't do anything illegal, but he knows all the loopholes. He's got an impressive client list. Ambassadors, diplomats, Spectres. That's probably why the shadow broker deals with him."

"So then what's so important about this Shadow Broker guy? He sounds like a glorified blogger or a tabloid journalist..."

The elevator stopped and the doors opened. Captain Anderson led them onto the rooftop and straight to a public air car that was already open and waiting for a client. "Think of it this way." Anderson said, stopping next to the car, "Everyone has their price, it's just a matter of who can afford it. With enough money, you could pay someone to give you the specifications of the Normandy's stealth systems, and if someone offered you more money than you paid to get it, you'd make a profit selling that info. Those are the kinds of secrets I'm talking about. Or maybe not always that dramatic. You could buy information you could use for blackmail, insider trading, or just embarassing a rival politician. You could buy information that could start a war, or sell information to prevent one..." Anderson's face twisted into something between a grin and a grimace as he sat down in the air car. "I got it. Imagine if the Office of Naval Intelligence was being run on a for-profit basis. You could spy on people just to sell their secrets to their worst enemies. And then you stay in business by spying on your buyers and sell their secrets back to your original victims."

"This... um... doesn't seem like the kind of person we ought to be getting involved with." Shepard walked around to the other side of the air car and sat down next to him while Williams and Alenko took the back seats.

"I beg to differ. Information brokers are a necessary evil in galactic politics. Buying and selling information is part of the game, and the Shadow Broker is the best player on the field. Always pays to the highest bidder. Doesn't get involved in politics and doesn't pick sides. Simple system, but it's worked so far. He's not a threat to anyone, he's just a resource we can use. Or she. Or they. No one really knows."

"Any recommendations on where to start?"

Anderson hit the switch to close the doors and cockpit cover and started up the air car's mass effect engine. As the computer went through the system checks he asked, "Have you been down to the wards yet?"

"No. Why?"

"Then you should start with Barla Von. The Wards can be pretty rough on newcomers, but if you think of it like Hong Kong or Gaza, you should be okay. Well I mean... not okay, but you won't be that surprised when something weird happens." Anderson took the controls and the Air Car lifted off. The computer put a navpoint on the car's HUD plotting the location of the nearest available public landing pad in the Financial District. Not for the first time, Shepard wondered what kind of safety measures were in place to prevent these cars from being accidentally - or worse, deliberately - steered into the sides of buildings at high velocities. That the VI soon moved the car into the flow of traffic - literally dozens of cars running along the circumference of the presidium ring - made her wonder this even more.

"I'm also planning to requisition a shuttle from the Alliance outpost in Zakera Ward," Anderson added, "It'll take me a while, but it's better than moving around in the public cabs."

"Remind me again why that is," Shepard said.

"Because Saren isn't going to stand idly by while we go on investigating on the side. Even if he thinks he's untouchable, which he basically is, he'll have his people keeping close tabs on your investigation. At the very first sign that we might be onto something, he'll have one or all of us killed."

"God..." Williams shudders, "And this is the kind of guy the Council trusts with galactic peace?"

"He's the kind of guy who gets the job done," Commander Shepard said, "Whatever the job happens to be, whatever it takes to reach the goal. He's ruthless and efficient and shows no hesitation at all."

"Which is why they wanted you, Commander. Saren is an unstoppable force, and you're an immovable object. I have a feeling one of the reasons they selected you was to counteract his growing influence among in Citadel Space."

"Is this what we were talking about last night? How he's getting more and more involved with galactic politics..."

"Exactly. Spectres don't have any real limits on their power except for the scrutiny of another Spectre. The Division is supposed to police its own members and keep them from flying off the rails. But when it's somebody with a pedigree like Saren Arturius, you can get away with a lot before they call you to the carpet."

Williams laughed, "So the Council created their own monster and now they're refusing to admit that it's grown out of their control."

"I can almost see their point of view," Alenko added, "Saren's never let them down before."

Shepard shrugged, "Well, his particular brand of crazy is very useful as long as it's directed at someone else."

Anderson laughed as the air car banked over and circled down towards the landing pad. The Financial District spread out below them, along with the high terraces of the Presidium Commons with its shops and restaurants and villas overlooking it all. The VI planted the air car on the ground and hit the switch on the console to open the doors; the car's transparent carapace opened up around them and Shepard and her team stepped out.

"Good hunting out there, Shepard. I'll be in the ambassador's office if you need me."

"How about that shuttle?" Shepard asked, "When can we expect that?"

"There's a Lieutenant Bailey over in Zakera Ward who owes me a few favors. I'll put in some calls."

Shepard saluted, and Captain Anderson closed the air car and rose up and away from the landing pad. Somehow, Shepard saw it like a flag going up on the mast of a battleship, signaling the start of a new operation. In some ways it was, in other ways it was the end of an otherwise brilliant military career.

Funny how those two things could coexist in the same symbol.


	26. Chapter 25

**25 - Pilgrimage: What the hell kind of a name is 'Fist?'**

Chora's Den wasn't the shadiest-looking dump Tali'Zorah had ever seen, but the sight of the place was still a very bad omen. Maybe it was the badly glitched holographic dancing Asari on the Marquee, or maybe it was the dent on the front door that strongly resembled a relief of the side of a Turian's face. Maybe it was the fact that the exterior walls of the place had meta-panels instead of actual windows so that the otherwise solid (and possibly armor plated) metal walls of the building were completely transparent from inside. Maybe it was the heavily armed Krogan bouncer standing just outside the doorway in light armor with a shotgun in his hand. Or maybe it was the fact that the only way to access the place was a pair of narrow pedways that crossed a deep chasm through the middle of Tayseri Ward almost three hundred meters deep and that, as far as she could tell, there was no other way in or out of it.

Either way, Chora's Den didn't seem like the safest place for someone to hide out. Tali'Zorah would have turned around and sought out the relative comfort of Doran Gord's store room at Flux if not for the fact that Flux was the first place anyone would probably look for her. And Chora's Den did have one other thing going for it: It was very, very hard to find.

That was probably why most of its current patrons had come here in the first place, possibly even including the krogan at the door with the shotgun. She expected him to scan her with his omni-tool when she approached the door, but to her surprise the only thing he did was look her over for a moment and then clear his throat to almost-whisper, "If you start a fight, we'll hurt you. If you get attacked, it's okay to defend yourself."

That, Tali'Zorah knew, was a Batarian custom, although it was alot more popular in places like Omega and Ilium than it was in actual Batarian colonies. The Batarians mostly preferred the pretense of their more complicated caste-system rules and didn't lower themselves to the customary house rules of commoners even though most of them were, in fact, commoners. But the human and volus who seemed to make up the majority of club and bar managers preferred the simpler system, and so it was catching on in more and more places.

She nodded her assent to the bouncer and pushed her way through the creaking, hinged metal door that lead inside.

She was slightly surprised to discover that the entire Den had been built in a circle around the power conduit for one of the station's mass effect field generators. This field conduit and dozens of others like it was responsible for generating the forcefields that kept the Citadel's atmosphere from floating off into space when the ward arms were open. There was no sign of monitoring equipment or machinery here because, like everything else on the Citadel, the generators were maintained by the keepers, who accessed the hardware of the field coils from a completely different set of access conduits that no one else could even get to or even, usually, fit inside of. The circular center column was almost ten meters in diameter, and racks of shelves and refrigerators had been built against its side with a bar wrapped around its circumference. A circular stage was built directly above the bar with a half dozen variable-gravity platforms installed for dancers. Almost all of the dancers were asari. They weren't particularly good.

The remainder of the circular room was dominated by small tables or booths built into the walls. Some of the booths wrapped around stripper poles where more asari - the more talented dancers - served paying customers. Tali'Zorah could here the thumping base and drums of music, but she couldn't hear any sort of melody except for slight tickle in her outer ear, so most of the tune was probably on a frequency outside of her normal range of hearing. That meant it was probably human or batarian music. Again, typical for an Omega-style club; Krogan music was nothing but drum rythms anyway, and the turian auditory, while very large, had a huge gap in the middle range and so all of their music sounded like a combination of low growls and ear-splitting screams. Deep pounding base combined with ultrasonics was a compromise that made everyone happy except for quarians and vorcha (vorcha weren't allowed in clubs like this, and who the fuck cared what quarians wanted?)

Doctor Michel had told her what to do when she arrived, but the sights and sounds of it all were a lot to take in and she had trouble remembering. A turian at one table was chugging an amber-colored liquid that was either varenade or primarch's brandy, and judging by his slouching posture and downcast expression, probably varenade (wonderful animals, those varen; everything about them was delicious, even their piss). A few humans tucked into a corner, nursing glasses of ice brandy or evergreen or some of the new drinks the earthlings kept bringing from their crazy planet that, as far as anyone could tell, was populated entirely by alcoholics. She noted the conspicuous absence of batarians or salarians in the room as evidence that this place was too respectable for the former and too low-brow for the latter...

Now she remembered. There was supposed to be a salarian here, tucked into the back corner near the door to the maintenance tunnels that had been converted to store rooms and offices. She made her way in a long circular path around the bar and the stage, squeezed past a pair of krogan talking about fish in the Presidium lake (they were talking louder than they needed to be, probably because the bass was a lot louder to them than it was to anyone else). A balding human in a C-Sec uniform leered at her as she walked past, and one of the asari dancers looked her over head-to-toe with a look of something like nostalgia. A wide doorway at the back of the room had a holographic sign in the threshhold that said "VIP and Staff Only" in four different languages; Tali'Zorah walked right through it and into a narrow hallway with a door on either side and another, automatic door guarded by a salarian in a fancy suit and two krogan in heavy combat armor. The two krogan immediately drew pistols from the hardpoints on their thighs, while the salarian lifted a datapad and asked "Are you Tali?"

"Tali'Zorah nar Raya ," she corrected, keeping her voice low. "I am here to see someone who calls himself 'The Fist.' I was told..." she trailed off at a sound through one of the side doors. Sounds of anger and exertion, grunts and moans and gasps and soft cries. Tali'Zorah got the sickening feeling that someone was being murdered just a few meters from where she was standing. What the hell kind of place have I come to? Why am I even...

Then someone inside that room screamed "Baby I'm yours!" and Tali'Zorah's cheeks started to burn.

"It's just 'Fist,'" said the salarian, tucking the datapad into his suit jacket and opening his omni-tool, "Are you armed or carrying any electronic recording equipment?"

She thought to tell him that her exo-suit was as much as scientific and defensive instrument as it was an environmental implement, that it recorded everything she saw and did and categorized it for her, that the scanner on her omni-tool was in a low-power passive mode that did the same, and that the small knife in her boot had a razor sharp nickel-titanium blade, that the utility drone sleeping on her left forearm could be used as a defense system, that after leaving Doctor Michel's clinic she'd downloaded a function from the extranet that let her omni-tool fire off a very painful electric pulse into the skins of would-be attackers, that the Aldrin Labs part she'd used to replace the right arm of her suit had a built in power assist and shock absorption that, with a little tweaking by her, would allow her to deliver a punch strung enough to crush a man's ribcage if she really needed it to...

"No," she said instead, and held her arms out to the side while the salarian continued to scan her and somehow failed to notice any of those things. Tali'Zorah had learned her lesson from the customs agent; it was a simple thing to rig her shield booster to block an active scan, especially one as primitive as this salarian was using.

"Alright," he said at last, and then waved her through, "Straight through the store room, first door on the left.

"Thank you," said Tali'Zorah, and walked past him without glancing back.

The store room was full of boxes and crates, mostly metal and ceramic. As soon as the door closed behind her, she opened her omni-tool and took active scans of each of them. The crates were shielded against external scanners, but her equipment had no problem reading through that. Most of them were full of small glass vials about the right size to be pre-filled hypodermics or test tubes; probably red sand, or something equally illegal and expensive. One crate was filled entirely with assault rifles, another contained pieces of krogan body armor. One very large container stacked against the wall contained a small cryo pod and a small humanoid body that Tali'Zorah's scanner couldn't tell if it was alive or not. How Fist managed to get any of these things onto the Citadel was anyone's guess.

The far door of the store room opened to another hallway that, in turn, opened into three more doors. She stopped at the door on the left, knocked three times, and took a step back and to the right just in case the person on the other side decided to greet her with gunfire (nothing would have surprised her at this point).

But the door slid open with a soft chime and a mechanical hiss and Tali'Zorah realized that it and all of the doors in this part of the building were, in fact, hermetically-sealed pressure doors. The door opened to a large room that was configured like an office but decorated like a playboy's penthouse: shag carpet in front of round mahogany desk flanked by a zebra-print sofa and a pair of neo-futuristic dome chairs. There was a large square safe bolted to the floor in one corner of the room and a refrigerator tucked into the other. One entire wall was dominated by a huge, high-definition floor-to-ceiling portrait of a naked human woman with body proportions that probably would have looked natural on a quarian but on a human frame just looked silly and cartoonish.

In the center of the room, staring at that portrait with his arms folded, was a man wearing a jet black heavy battle armor that had somehow been stylized to look even more bulky and imposing than it ordinarily would have. Extra panels of armor had been draped over the shoulders and hips and the scabbard for some kind of sword was mounted to a cheap leather belt that made an unconvincing pretense of being both genuine leather and genuinely old.

Tali'Zorah stood in the doorway, wondering seriously if she had the right room. The man in the armor stared at the portrait thoughtfully for another moment, then shook his head and snapped his fingers. The portrait disappeared, and the image of a different woman - also nude, but this time far more stylized and riding on the back of some kind of fire-breathing reptile - replaced it. He looked at this new image for a moment or two, then nodded his approval and said almost as an afterthought, "Chloe told me you were coming. Tali is it?"

"Tali'Zorah nar Raya," she said, correcting him gently.

"What the hell kind of name is Tali'Zorah nar Raya?"

"What the hell kind of name is Fist?"

He half turned towards her, puzzled expression in his hard, penetrating stare. His ridiculously square jaw and military-style haircut gave him an almost cube-shaped head, and balanced on top of that heavy armor he was wearing, made him look like a comic book artists' ideal action hero. That, plus the sword at his waist and the hardness of his stare projected an air of competence and violence that was almost too perfect to be anything but a put-on.

"Yihequan Chu," he said, finally.

Tali'Zorah's translator splashed a series of question marks on her display. She shifted her weight, suddenly uncomfortable.

"That's my name," he went on, "My real name. My mother claims I was named after a rock band. But the rock band was named after a band of warriors who fought a conquering empire for control of their homeland two hundred years ago. The Yihequan believed they had magical powers, the ability to stop bullets with their minds, the ability to destroy buildings or fortifications with just a thought. Powers like that now exist in the world thanks to the mass effect, and the Yihequan - the Fists of Righteous Harmony - live again through me."

It was a relatively long answer to an extremely simple question, but at least it was a thorough one. Tali'Zorah responded in kind, "A tali'eth is an unpredictable shift in the solar winds, and a et'zorah is machine component that lasts longer than its specifications. So Tali'Zorah is a play on words that means roughly 'unpredictable blessing.' I've never asked for specifics, but it is probably an allusion to the circumstances of my birth. The rest of my name, nar Raya, is a reference to the ship where I was born."

"Well, Unpredictable Blessing of the starship Raya," Fist said the name as if he was announcing the arrival of royalty and gave a slight bow, "Welcome to rock bottom."

It took her translator a moment longer than usual to pick up on the meaning of that phrase. She frowned when she realized he didn't mean it literally. "I'm not looking for charity. Just a safe place to hide until I can arrange-"

"You have no money, no resources, no home, and no contacts. Don't bullshit me, kid. Charity is exactly what you're looking for. This is because you're desperate and you're in over your head and you don't have any place left to go. You're about as fucked as you can be in a place like the Citadel. If this was Omega, you'd be selling pussy to the vorcha by now."

Tali'Zorah tilted her head, "What would a vorcha want with a small four-legged mammal?"

Fist's mouth snapped shut and his features fluctuated, his train of thought momentarily lost.

"Anyway," Tali'Zorah went on, "I'm not a charity case. The information I have is valuable enough that I can definitely reimburse you when the trade is complete. The only way I'm down on my luck is that I can't give you payment up front because the information is only valuable in the right hands. In the mean time, I can offer you one thousand credits per day for up to ten days in exchange for protection."

Fist's eyebrows rose half an inch, "You really think you can arrange a trade in only ten days?"

"I've traded with the Shadow Broker before. I'm amazed it's taken as long as it already has. You have a direct connection yourself, so it should be even simpler."

"Should be," Fist said, foldhing his arms across his chest (no small feat in his bulky armor). "Thing is, I know the Doctor vouched for you and that gets you an introduction. But without knowing what kind of information you want to trade-"

Tali'Zorah raised her arm and her omni-tool flashed to life. A holographic window appeared in the air between them and a deliberately reduced-resolution image solidified into streaming video from the point of view of one well-hidden quarian drone.

"How did this happen, Commander?" asked a tall Asari woman in dark grey robes, "How did we lose to these humans?"

"Lose?" a turian with an unusually spikey (even for a turian) bone structure spun towards her with a wild look in his eyes, "We haven't lost, Benezia! This is a major victory! This beacon will bring one step closer to finding the Conduit!"

"And the return of the Reapers?" asked the Asari, sounding sheepish.

The Turian took a deep breath and said almost in a gasp, "And salvation!"

Tali'Zorah closed the playback and told her omni-tool to run checksums on her storage to make sure no one was trying to pull a copy out of her buffer.

Fist dropped his arms to his side and asked immediately, "Where did you get that recording?"

"Eden Prime. I recorded it myself."

"You do know who that turian is, don't you?"

"Doctor Michel says it might be Saren Atrurius, the turian spectre. If so, that gives you some idea of the value of the data, doesn't it?"

Fist thought about this for a moment, scratching his chin, "Well, a single audio track and low-res video isn't much to go on..."

"Which is why I'm saving the good stuff for the Shadow Broker. I've got detailed information on Saren's biometric data, on the Geth troopers and their capabilities, on his ship, his weapons, and his involvement in the murder of another spectre. It's enough to have Saren prosecuted for treason."

"What kind of price are you looking to get from the Broker?" Fist asked.

Now, at last, Tali'Zorah felt the pieces fall into place. She had either forgotten or had not fully expected that this was exactly the kind of question any legitimate data broker or his agents would be asking as soon as the data was confirmed. "Fifty five thousand for the data relating just to Saren, sixty for his ship. Two hundred for the whole cache and he can sort it out on his own. You can deduct my protection fees directly from the payout if you like, but only if you provide me with a safehouse and security until the trade has gone through."

Fist smiled, reading between the lines. He knew as well as she did that the Shadow Broker never bought parts of data if he had a choice. He demanded context, peripherals, and access to the raw data in case a stringer or seller missed something relevant. if Tali'Zorah was offering a mass dump of everything she'd recorded on Eden Prime, he would pay top dollar for that information before anything else.

And so Fist surprised her with the simple words "No deal."

Tali'Zorah didn't react, just stood still and waited for him to explain what, if anything, the hitch really was.

"The Shadow Broker's put Saren at the very top of his shitlist," he went on, "Never mind the reasons. The point is, something this important, he's not going to want to go through the usual channels."

"Okay. What does that mean, exactly?"

"It means," Fist's smile returned, "That you're going to have the rare privilege of doing business with the Shadow Broker in person."

Tali'Zorah took a small step back, "What are you talking about? The Broker never deals with anyone in person."

"Of course he doesn't. Not unless it's... well... personal. Saren's been turning some of the Broker's agents against him to try and stay ahead of his information network, and the Broker has definitely taken that personally. If you have information that could implicate Saren, the Broker won't want to trust that to any intermediaries who might be bought off."

It made a certain amount of sense, although Tali'Zorah couldn't help but wonder how much it would cost to buy Fist off. On the other hand, he seemed to be doing okay for himself, and pissing off the Shadow Broker would be an incredibly stupid move for someone who had anything at all to lose. "When can I expect to arrange a meeting?"

Fist smiled reassuringly, "One thousand a day, you said?"

Tali'Zorah folded her arms.

"Relax. Joking," he said, humorlessly enough that she knew he wasn't, "I'll make the call right away. It'll be a day or two before the meeting goes down. In the mean time, you're free to use the VIP room on the second level. I hardly ever use it anymore."

"Do I really want to know what you used to use it for?"

"Nothing perverse, if that's what you're wondering."

That came as little comfort to Tali'Zorah, but she nodded her thanks anyway, "If we have a deal, Fist, I'd like to get settled in now. I have certain environmental requirements that..."

"We do, and this aint my first time dealing with Quarians, so don't worry about that part either. I'll have an air shield put in by the door so you can keep the place sterilized, and my guards will keep you safe. There's only one way in or out of these utility rooms so you'll be safe here until the Shadow Broker comes to collect the data." Before he was even finished speaking, Fist was typing commands into a holographic screen on his omni-tool. A salarian voice trickled out of it and Fist told him, "Bring over an electric airlock for our guest. The good one, not the glitchy one." Then he closed the connection, switched modes, and pulsed a file towards Tali'Zorah's hardsuit. Her omni-tool picked it up and translated a plain text message on her heads up display. "That's my personal contact line and the door code. Good luck to you, Unpredictable Blessing."

"Same to you, Fist of Righteous Harmony." Tali'Zorah bowed slightly and left Fists' office, heading deeper into his labyrinth of store rooms and closets, offices and spare bedrooms.

Up a flight of stairs to another set of hallways and store rooms and she found the door, punched in the code, and stepped into a perfectly ordinary-looking dormitory-style apartment with a wire mesh cot on one side and an extranet terminal on the other.

"Well," she said to herself, closing the door behind her, "That went better that expected."


	27. Chapter 26

**26 - Citadel: Expose Saren**

The Sanctuary of the Consort was on a high terrace overlooking the financial district, close to the Presidium Commons but far enough away from it that the hustle and bustle of that place could easily be ignored. The building was well decorated and ornate, and the small court yard in front of it was home to a beautiful and well-kept garden with such an amazing variety of wild flowers and small fruit trees that it couldn't possibly represent the biome of a single planet.

And yet the entrance to the building was so understated that Shepard wasn't even sure it was an entrance until she got closer to it and saw that there was a short stairway behind it around a bend in the wall. Once she reached the bottom of that short stairway, they reached a small, waist-high computer terminal manned by an Asari woman in a very revealing dress that showed off a great deal of her sky-blue skin greeted her with a warm smile. "Welcome! I am Neylena! I, uh, don't recognize you as one of our expected clients today. Do you want me to see when the Consort will be able to meet with you?"

Shepard heard a great deal of subtext in those few words. The greeter was being polite and dancing around the fact that showing up here unannounced and without an invitation was something you simply did not do on the Citadel. She was telling her, basically, _You're not supposed to be here and you shouldn't have come._

She started to think of a way to deal with this breach of etiquette. Do the Asari have the same kind of deferential attitude towards the military like the Turians or the Americans? Are they matriarchal like the Salarians? Do they have a pathological fear of law enforcement like the Chinese or the Volus? She needed a strategy to try and talk her way past the Greeter...

Lieutenant Alenko did not. "Can't we just go in?"

The Greeter's professional politeness remained intact, but the condescension in her smile was hard to miss. "Mm. I'm afraid not. Yeah, you must understand that they are many who seek the Consort's services. But if you wish to leave your name and contact information she'll make every effort to meet with you."

Which was, again, another way of saying "Take a hike, riffraff," but Shepard went with it anyway. "My name is Shepard. I'm with the Systems Alliance Navy so you would contact me through the Alliance extranet terminal for SSV Normandy."

"Shepard... I see... is that your first or last name?"

Shepard froze for a moment, her face a blank stare. Behind her, Chief Williams stirred a bit as she realized she had the exact same question.

"First name," Shepard replied, "I had a last name at some point, but I don't remember what it is."

"Grew up in the colonies, did you?"

Shepard raised an eyebrow, "What makes you say that?"

"Don't human place names usually derive from the place they were born? Or is that only quarians?"

"I think it's only quarians. Human second names come from our family bloodline. But my colony was wiped out by slavers when I was a child and all the records were lost. I never knew my family name."

"Oh... I see..." her fingers work on the console for a long moment. Shepard realizes she is adding this information to the database along with her contact information.

"What do you do here, Neylena?" Shepard asked.

The woman's face lit up at that question. "I am one of the Consort's acolytes. Many of the people here today will not see the Consort, but they expect to be attended all the same. It's our job to ensure that they leave contended."

"What exactly do you 'attend' to?"

"Well, each acolyte has her own abilities. Some soothe with song, others with conversation... as much as possible we try to match the needs of our clients to the skills of our acolytes. My specialty is touch. My fingertips can find every tension point in your body... and relieve it."

"I'd like to try out your services."

Williams and Alenko traded a long glance.

"Excellent! I'll add you to our client list. We should be able to receive in you in..." she tapped something on her console and then looked up, "Three galactic years."

"That's..." Shepard did the math in her head. Almost four months. "Nobody's worth that much of a wait."

The Greeter chuckled. Again, that smug derision that let Shepard know exactly what an ignorant pedestrian she really was. "Well, that's not for me to judge, Neylena said,"I have your name and you'll be contacted. Is there anything else?"

"Out of curiosity... what is the Consort? What does she do?"

Neylena tilted her head to the side. It was a difficult question only because it was one nobody ever bothered to ask her before; it was asking why the sky was blue or why all sentient species wore clothes. "It's difficult to explain... she's many things to many people and something different for each. Some seek her for advice, some for entertainment. Others still for pleasure. Most of the time our clients won't realize what they're seeking until after she has provided it for them."

"You make her sound like some kind of oracle."

"No... not in the usual sense. She's just a woman like anyone else. A woman with remarkable compassion and generosity. I suggest you make an appointment and find out for yourself what the Consort can do for you."

Shepard smiled, "Yeah... I think I'm done here."

"Ah. Well, I hope you'll return again in the future. We always enjoy seeing new clients."

The subtext again, and this was the most obvious of all: _Come back as a client and not as a wandering vagrant off the street._

Shepard, shrugging, turned to Alenko and Williams next. "Where to next? The Broker?"

Williams nodded, "It's not far from here. About a block and a half spinward..."

"Yes, Shaira?" Neylena was talking into an earpiece now. A quizzical look crossed her face and her eyes darted up at Commander Shepard with something like amazement. "Yes, of course mistress." She dropped her finger from the slits on the side of her skull that passed for ears among the Asari and shrugged, "Huh. It appears the consort has taken notice of you, Commander. She would like to meet with you now."

Shepard looked at her companions, but both looked, unsurprisingly, clueless. "What does she want to see me for?"

"I don't know. You'll have to ask her yourself. Just head upstairs, she'll be waiting for you."

"Alright... Alenko, I'll leave the broker to you. Williams, you head over to C-Sec and talk to the executor about that Vakarian guy. We'll meet over at the Emporium in one hour."

"The Emporium?"

"It's a little shop right off the Commons. Close to Apollo's Cafe."

"Right. Got it. We'll meet you there."

Shepard watched the two of them walk back up the stairs and disappear, then nodded to the greeter and walked through the short hallway into the lobby.

In truth, despite the Greeter's vagueness, she had been expecting to walk into a room full of naked Asari cavorting and undulating on sofas in various stages of coitus; what little she knew of the Consort described, if nothing else, an extremely high-brow prostitute and the same could probably be expected of her acolytes. So the lack of sexual exhibition in the lobby right now was actually more jarring than what she did see, which was a dozen small side rooms each with a single alien inside, tended by an Asari in a very revealing white robe. Most of the Acolytes were just sitting and listening attentively, a few were playing musical instruments or dancing sensuously with their clients while a second played an instrument. Some - mostly those with Salarian clients - were kneeling submissively while holding large trays of what looked like quartz-glass pebbles in a gesture of servitude...

Then there was the expected lewdness, where one room was occupied by a naked Asari women sitting in the lap of an equally nude and pot-bellied man with a green, spike-topped haircut. He looked hypnotized, entranced, and flexed his muscles with even the slightest movement of his guest...

Shepard stopped mid stride, looked around again, and her eyes widened as she realized, startled, that at least a third of these were were, in fact, having sex. Or at least, whatever their respective species understood to be intercourse. The Salarians were fertilizing fake eggs gathered together in a simulated, highly-stylized clutch while their Acolytes did everything possible to set the mood for them. The turians and their "dance" was also an affectation that hid (or facilitated) the transfer of an embryo from a reproductive pouch in the center torso of one partner to another, like two people trying to pick each other's pockets without touching their hands.

And even then, it had taken her entirely too long to realize that almost everything she was seeing was, in some ways, entirely unreal. The biotic fields the Asari generated naturally were as present here as anywhere else, in most cases as a faint blue aura that permeated the rooms around them. Some part of Shepard's subconscious latched onto the fact that the blue maidens that occupied every room were not even remotely humanoid, nor were they doing anything as simple as "sex" by the standards of any other species. Yet the evidence of her eyes refused to be ignored...

The stairs at the end of the hall were well lit and inviting, and besides, they were the only other thing in the building except for acolyte guest rooms. Shepard went up two flights of stairs and through a long, narrow garden to reach a door that opened on its own as soon as she was in sight of it. On the other side of it was a large, tastefully-decorated bedroom that contained an oil panting of the citadel, a large transparent ovoid sphere that contained a small mattress and a thin blanket (Asari style bed?) and a curved, luxurious-looking sofa with a bottle of wine in the center of it.

It also contained, standing in the very center of the room, what could only have been the most beautiful carbon-based life form in the known galaxy. The realization struck Commander Shepard in the gut like a runaway fastball and she thought, _I should definitely not be this attracted to a female alien..._

"That is close enough, Commander,"

Shepard stopped in her tracks. She hadn't even realized she was still moving forward until now. There was something oddly hypnotic about Shaira, like the way a really catchy beat inserts itself into your head whether you wanted it to or not.

"I've heard a great many things about you since your arrival here on our Citadel."

Shepard took a slow breath to calm her heart rate and wished she had her hardsuit on to monitor her pulse rate. "What exactly do you do here?"

"That depends on your needs, Commander. I offer advice to some, comfort to others. I ask for no money or material possessions in return, only favors, gratification, or the pleasure of generous company."

"You don't get paid for your advice or comfort?"

"I am not a bank, so I do not deal with finances. What I get in return is more than adequate for my needs, and I make sure that what I provide is equally so."

"Fair enough..." Shepard shifted her weight, feeling the gravity of that statement. "I take it there's something you believe I can offer _you_?"

Shaira turned away from her and walked lazily towards the sofa, sinking down into the cushions like a mist settling on a mountain. "I have a certain problem that could use your expertise."

This was, so far, the only thing about the visit to the Consort that Commander Shepard did not find surprising. Even so, she played along, and took Shaira's body language as an invitation to continue. "What have you heard about me that makes you believe my skill set is a match to your problems?"

"It isn't your skill set that interests me, at least as far as this issue. In particular, I've been impressed by your openness and cooperation with other Citadel species. Most people who first arrive on the station spend their first few weeks here as virtual hermits or cling exclusively to their own species' embassies or districts. You, on the other hand, made it a point to introduce yourself to your neighbors within a day of your arrival. You may not be the most outgoing person socially, but you at least recognize the importance of engagement."

Shepard smiled, "Even if I don't understand the _rules_ of engagement."

"We learn by doing, Commander. And she learns fastest who is the least afraid of making mistakes." Shaira reached up and gently brushed her fingers past Shepard's ear. She felt her hair tingle with her touch, like an electric field being run past her head. A soft, delightful shiver ran down her spine, something like a pre-sentiment of arousal. _She's very good at this,_ Shepard realized.

She swallowed hard and tried to stay on task, focusing on the mission instead, "I don't suppose you've heard anything about the business that brought me to the Citadel?"

Shaira nodded slowly, "I am aware of your... discord? Your conflict with Commander Saren. Before you ask, no, he has never been a client of mine, so I would not be able to help you with that matter."

Shepard asked the question she had spent several minutes meditating on to get the wording just right, just enough to get the kind of answer she needed. "That being the case, do you know of anyone I should talk to if I were seeking hard-to-get information?"

Shaira smiled, "Information is not hard to find on the Citadel, only expensive. I would recommend the volus banker, Barla Von. Rumor has it he frequently does business for the Shadow Broker and would certainly be willing to sell information to an interested buyer."

This was what Shepard needed most. Both the confirmation that Barla Von was trustworthy, and the confirmation that Shaira was the kind of person who would be able to answer the rest of her questions. And her reliability having been verified, "I'll try that, Consort. Thank you..."

"You should try to be careful, though," Shaira leaned away from her, but in almost the same action reached up with her near hand and almost reflexively stroked Shepard's cheek. That electric tingle licked her skin again, an this time her arousal was more than a presentiment, "If you are in conflict with Commander Saren, given his singular reputation, your life could very well be in danger."

Shepard smiled and tried not to maintain her professionalism - that is, she tried not to lean over and pour herself into Shaira's lap like a horny teenager - and said, "Should I be so concerned? My understanding is that firearms are prohibited on the Citadel."

"You understand correctly, Commander. Citadel Security strictly regulates the use of firearms and explosive devices on the Presidium as well as the Wards. They are extremely difficult to obtain without proper clearance."

Shepard nodded, then said, "Except, of course, for black market arms dealers."

"Well, obviously. But those are very dangerous people to deal with, yes?"

"Certainly people I'd want to avoid. If I only knew who they were."

Shaira thought about this for a moment, "Since you mention it, I do know of a salarian in lower Tayseri Ward by the name of Morlan. He is constantly involved in shady dealings. His friend Expat also runs a gift shop nearby that sells equipment to private military contractors, but he doesn't always check to make sure his buyers have proper authorization. Those are both people you should try to avoid if you don't want to get in trouble with C-Sec."

Shepard did her best to look incensed and horrified, "They sell illegal weapons to people who aren't authorized to carry?"

"Anyone who can pay their exorbitant prices, yes. At least that's the rumor."

"I see... thank you, Consort. I'll be sure to steer clear of them."

The Consort smiled, "I am only too happy to advise, Commander."

"And I am only too happy to repay your generosity. So," Shepard crossed one leg over the other and leaned back on the sofa, "Tell me about this problem you're having."

Shaira stood up, walked around the table and took her place in the center of the room, exactly where Shepard was when she walked in. Facing her on the couch, she looked as if she was about to begin some sort of dance routine in the middle of the floor. "I have a friend," she said, her tone shifting to more serious, "Septimus Oraka. A retired Turian general. I won't discuss the details, but he wanted me to be more than I could be for him. We had a falling out, and now he spends his days in Chora's Den, drinking and spreading lies about me. If you would speak to him as a fellow soldier, I believe he would listen to you and let the matter be."

"What happened between you two?"

"I respect his privacy too much to go into details. If he wishes to tell you what happened, that is his prerogative."

Shepard frowned, "Without knowing the nature of the problem... I'm not sure what it is about my skill set you think would be so useful in this?"

Shaira smiled, "You could perhaps appeal to his sense of honor," Shaira moved forward over the table, a playful swing of her hips with every step, "Remind him of his position as a general." She was close enough to reach out and touch her again, and in that moment she did, brushing a few strands of lose hair back behind Shepard's ear. "If you could convince him to stop his smear campaign against me, I would be very grateful."

"I don't make any promises, but I'll see what I can do."

"Thank you, Commander. That is all I can ask." She stepped back again, receding like a summer rain or a sweet smell on the breeze. "Now, regretfully, I must ask you to take your leave. I have many clients to see today."

Shepard stood up slowly, smoothed down her uniform and tried hard not to look as melted inside as she was. _I should really not be this attracted to a female alien..._ And turned to leave on unsteady, trembling legs.

...

...

A quick stop to the Avina terminal and a check at the salarian clerk at the Emporium shop lead Lieutenant Alenko straight to an unmarked, undecorated, completely ordinary-looking door that lead to a corner office in the Commercial Market Building. Within, an average-sized Volus sat behind an average-sized desk in the middle of an average-sized office that contained little else except a bank of computer servers and a holo-projector off to one side. The vol behind the desk looked up and the lenses of his exosuit flickered as if in reflex, and before Alenko could even open his mouth to speak he began, "What's this? One of the Earth-clan! Ah a very famous one at that! You are the one called Kaiden, yes? A great honor to welcome the Alliance Navy's first and highest ranking biotic soldier!"

Alenko stepped up to the desk and tried to keep his tone neutral. "You've got me at a disadvantage here."

"Forgive me, Earth-clan. My name is Barla Von. My job makes it necessary for me to keep informed. I am a financial advisor to many important clients here on the Citadel. When someone as important as yourself arrives on the station, I take notice."

The idea of being someone important enough for a complete strange - let alone an alien - didn't completely sit well with Alenko, but in light of Barla Von's description, it made a certain amount of sense. There were now thousands of human biotics serving with field units in the Alliance, distributed so that almost every ship, platoon or fire team had at least one biotic on hand. Rare special forces units were prioritized for this deployments, with the most experienced and decorated biotic soldiers invariably serving alongside S6 and N7 combat specialists.

That wasn't exactly common knowledge, but it wasn't a secret either. It was something Barla Von would have known just by talking to the right people or knowing to ask the right questions at the right times. This was a good omen, if nothing else. "I heard you work for the Shadow Broker," Alenko said.

Barla Von took a deep breath before answering, "You've been listening to rumors, Lieutenant. Most people see my success and they just assume something nefarious is going on."

Alenko smiled, "A prejudiced assumption, but that doesn't mean they're wrong. I'm looking for information about Saren Arturius, and I was told you would be the one to ask."

Barla Von took another deep hissing breath, "You're very blunt, Lieutenant. But you're right. I am an agent for the Shadow Broker. And I do have some information about Saren."

Alenko folded his arms, "I hear your information can be expensive."

Barla Von's head dipped slightly, "Normally this information would cost a small fortune. But these are exceptional circumstances, so I am going to give it to you for free."

Alenko rocked back on his heels, folding his arms across his chest. "Right... What's the catch?"

"There is no catch. The Shadow Broker is quite upset with Saren right now. They used to do alot of business together. Until Saren turned on him."

"Turned on him?" Alenko raised a brow, "I thought the whole point of the Shadow Broker was that nobody knows who he really is?"

"True. But his agents are another matter. In recent months, Saren has been taking steps to isolate the Shadow Broker. Many of his agents of been indoctrinated and turned into double agents, others have been assassinated or blackmailed. It's made it much harder for the Broker to do business. So right now, the Broker is offering top dollar for any information on Saren, and is giving away that information at a considerable discount. That, of course, you could find out from just about anyone in the underworld... I could tell you more, but that will cost you a standard fee. Discounted, of course..."

Alenko immediately opened his omni-tool and tapped a command to the Normandy's accounting system. Chief Williams had transferred a stipend to his procurement budget for exactly this occasion - fifteen thousand credits worth - and with two touches of his fingers, two thousand of those credits transferred directly to Barla Von's personal account for 'Services Rendered.'

Barla Von's omni-tool pinged, and he went on talking as if he didn't notice, like a vending machine spitting out more information just because somebody had fed it a coin. "Saren is very interested in Prothean Artifacts lately. Before betraying the Broker, he purchased large swaths of very expensive information about Prothean Ruins in the Attican Traverse. His final inquiries were focussed on something called 'the Conduit,' which somehow lead to information about the Prothean ruins on Feros. Shortly after obtaining that information, Saren began targeting the Broker's agents, recruiting several of them to feed the Broker misinformation, and assassinating others who were more resistant. One curious thing is the Broker's use of the word tra'ala'fel. The word means approximately 'indoctrination' in your language, but in the Salarian tongue it is closer to 'hypnosis' or 'enchantment.' The Shadow Broker is not himself a particularly skilled linguist, but the implication is that Saren did not merely recruit the Broker's agents to work for him, but rather coerced them somehow."

"So Saren betrayed the Shadow Broker too," Alenko grinned, "Imagine that!"

Barla Von's head bobbled side to side, probably the Volus equivalent of a head shake, "No matter what you might think of Saren he's not stupid. He knows the Shadow broker is a valuable ally. Turning on him doesn't make sense."

"Not unless something huge was at stake," Alenko said.

"Indeed. The only other thing I can tell you is that the Shadow Broker has just placed a bounty on the heads of several of his former agents. A number of bounty hunters have already taken the assignment, including a krogan mercenary who recently arrived on the station."

"Can you give me the target list?"

Barla Von took hissing breath and said, "I certainly can." Then he sat there perfectly still, for several seconds, staring at Alenko blankly.

Alenko opened his omni-tool and flung another two thousand credits into Barla von's account. The volus, in turn, tapped his omni-tool and quickly shot a data file back at him. "The Mercenary in question is named Urdnot Wrex. I heard he was paying citadel security a visit. You can probably catch him before he leaves their headquarters."

Alenko checked that his omni-tool had indeed received the Broker's bounty list and then asked, "Isn't it strange that a Krogan mercenary would want to speak with C-Sec?"

"Very. However, I doubt the visit was entirely his choice. You'll need to speak with him if you want to know more."

Alenko nodded his thanks, and started for the office door.

...

...

The holographic directory called the place "C-Sec Academy," but Chief Williams knew that nothing academic went on in this place. Or perhaps it did, in a different sense; from what little she had seen already, C-Sec officers were a combination of soldiers and scientists, studying crime scenes and the behavior of suspects to arrive at a hypothesis that could be tested in a court of law. The legal system of the Citadel was equally rigorous and scientific; an investigator would piece together evidence of the crime based on a painstaking examination of forensic evidence, while a set of incredibly advanced VIs would mine the suspect's personal data, private records, past history and known associates, and everything that was possibly knowable about that person, and run it through a predictive model to determine if this person was likely to have committed the crime in the way the investigators suggested. The success rate for this system was better than eighty five percent, which improved somewhat when one accounted for the appeals process. Still, Williams felt something deeply troubling about an entire society trusting matters of law and order to predictive algorithms on a computer.

The Academy dominated almost an entire section of the Presidium Ring directly between the Embassies and the Citadel Tower. Most of the structure of it was sunk into the sub-levels beneath the "ground" level of the Presidium, in a vast hollow space that looked like a giant atrium or maybe an skyscraper turned inside-out. Twenty floors of floor-to-ceiling windows looked into the vast open space from offices, meeting rooms and conference rooms of thousands of C-Sec personnel. Only the officers who directly investigated crimes in the Presidium were located here, the rest of the spaces were filled by administrators, functionaries and clerks who coordinated with satellites stations elsewhere in the Wards.

The head honcho and top cop of the entire C-Sec organization occupied an office so obscure and out of the way that Williams might have mistaken it for a broom closet if she hadn't been told exactly where to look. It sat on the third floor of a part of the atrium that overlooked a commissary and a food court and opened up to a mixed-use civilian and C-Sec parking lot for air cars that, for some reason, was mostly empty except for a single T-47 Kodiak shuttle. It wasn't just that Executor Pallin kept a low profile, she realized, it was that very few people ever had reason to see him directly.

This, too, made her somewhat uncomfortable; like the Citadel Council, the degree of separation between those with power and those affected by that power was several hundred layers thicker than it should have been.

No one was standing guard outside the little stairway that led up to the Executor's office - why would anyone need to guard the top cop of a paramilitary police force in the middle of his headquarters? - and the door opened without requesting her ID or any authentication whatsoever. She felt her stomach jump to her throat as it suddenly occurred to her that it was just too easy to get into this office and her eyes scanned the room searching for an ambush that must have been waiting for her...

"Gunnery Chief Williams," Pallin looked up from behind the desk, setting a large mug of something hot and steamy that smelled like gasoline on his desk, "I wasn't expecting a visit from you today. Did Ambassador Udina send you to growl at me for failing to implicate Saren?"

She looked around the room one more time and finally let herself relax a bit. Not that she even had a weapon she could use to defend herself, but still... "No, I came to ask a few questions of my own. To begin with... well, this may be a strange question, but can just anyone walk in here and talk to you without an appointment?" she glanced back at the door she'd just come through, "I mean, you have no guards, no receptionist."

"Why would they want to? Anyone who needs to reach me can do so from anywhere on the station. The only people who'd want to come here personally are people like you, who don't know how to contact me, or people like that dumbass Harkin, who like to pick fights they know they can't win."

Williams raised a brow, "Harkin came in here to pick a fight?"

"He came in here with a pistol loaded with incendiary rounds and demanded his old job back. I, of course, answered him calmly and rationally, without resorting to unnecessary violence."

"Shot him in the kneecaps, then?"

Pallin's mandibles tilted upwards and his eyes narrowed to slits. Even Williams, who had no practice reading turian facial expressions, recognized the grin for what it was.

"I'm surprised you recognize me at all," Williams said, crossing over to one of the floor to ceiling windows overlooking the atrium, "Unless we've met before and I just didn't realize it."

"I read your dossier as part of the investigation into Saren. Besides, it's my job to know when someone like you arrives on the Citadel."

Someone like you. It was all in the way he said it, the way the flange in his voice got just a little bit sharper. Turians were rare among Citadel species for not really needing translators to talk to anyone else, their gift in language comprehension bordered on the supernatural. Pallin understood the English language well enough to understand the significance of what he was implying.

"I get the feeling you're not too fond of humans," Williams said.

"No, I just don't trust your kind. Not yet."

"Why? What did humans ever do to you?"

"You humans are eager to take all the power you can get, and you're being given alot. If the Council wants to make humanity their new favorite pet, that's their business. But I don't have to like it."

Williams scowled, "The council treats us like second class citizens. We have to fight for everything we get.

"Good. Fight for it. Earn it. But don't expect the rest of us to just sit back and let you take it. Anyway, I'm a busy man, Chief. What's this all about?"

"I'm here on behalf of Commander Shepard. She's launching an independent investigation into Saren, and I'd like to discuss your initial findings. Even if-"

"I'm sure this will come as a terrible shock to you, Chief Williams, but I can't discuss an ongoing investigation, nor can I share evidence with personnel outside of C-Sec."

Williams froze, "Is it ongoing? I thought the case was closed."

"I thought so too. But soon-to-be former Sergeant Vakarian is still pursing this on his own."

"Soon to be...?"

"This is at least the fourth time he's gone behind my back and pursued a case long after its expiration date. I'm asking for his walking papers when he finally does report in, whenever that will be. I suppose you'll be able to discuss whatever you like with him then, but until I fire his crazy ass, it's an internal department matter and I can't discuss it further."

"You're willing to tell me that you're about to fire him but you aren't willing to tell me why?"

"If you knew his reputation, you'd wonder how he still has a job."

And this was the guy they sent to investigate Saren's misconduct? No wonder they ignored the results. "Well, okay... on that note, what can you tell me about Saren? I realize he's a Spectre, and that gives him a certain amount of latitude..."

"The Spectres..." Pallin chuckled, and this time the disdain in his voice was far more than just a thinly veiled suspicion. "I trust them even less than your kind. They're the right hand of the Council, or so they like to be called. More like the underhanded side of the council.

"What do you have against the Spectres?"

"I can't abide any organization that considers itself above the law. Especially when it's left up to each individual Spectre when and how to bend the rules."

"Suppose, for the sake of argument, that sometimes you have to bend the rules to keep people safe?

"I've been with C-Sec for thirty years. I've never had to break the law to do my job. Not once."

Williams snorted, "Yeah, right. You expect me to believe none of your officers are corrupt?"

"Of course they are. There are over two hundred thousand C-Sec agents, some of them are going to go bad. But we don't turn a blind eye to corruption like the Spectres do. We do our best to find and punish any officer who breaks the law. Spectres... they'll never come under that kind of scrutiny."

Williams folded her arms, leaning back on her heels, "Maybe the Galaxy needs people like that. People who do the dirty jobs."

"I agree. But they need to be held to a higher standard. They need to be accountable. Saren's out of control, we both know that. But because he's a Spectre, the Council doesn't want to do anything about it. Is that the kind of person this galaxy needs?"

There were more sides to Pallin than Williams could see, especially his attitude towards Saren. History, culture, maybe some political difference too nuanced for her to grasp right now. Whatever it was, not for the first time, Williams sensed that the scaly turian exterior was actually the least important thing about who and what Pallin was inside. "Not all spectres are like Saren," she said, leaving it open.

"True. But the potential is always there. The Council selects Spectres because of their abilities, not because of their ethics. They even have Krogan members among their ranks..."

A soft chime sounded from her omni-tool and a circular contact icon flashed there. An ID number flashed, telling her the call was from the private channel the Commander had set up before they parted ways in the financial district. Williams said, "If you'll excuse me, Executor, I think I need to take this," and started back through the automatic door to his office.

"Good luck with your investigation," Pallin said as the doors closed behind her.

Once outside, she raised her omni-tool to her ear and let the device created a noise-canceling audible focus just in front of her ear so that nobody else could over hear the conversation. "Williams here."

"There she is," Shepard said, the sound of a fountain splash in the background of her audio, "Alright, I'll go first. The Consort confirmed the Barla Von connection to the Shadow Broker. She also gave me some pointers on where we can get some useful sporting goods. Long as we be careful with it, of course, since it's not exactly above board. I owe her a favor though. Got to head down into the Wards, a place called Chora's Den, talk to a turian general on her behalf."

Alenko said, "Chora's Den? Isn't that the same place that C-Sec guy hangs out?"

"You mean Harkin?"

Williams drew a breath and spoke up, "Executor Pallin mentioned him. I think his suspension has turned permanent."

"Not much of a lead, then," Alenko said, "So forget about him. I did find out something else. Starting about three months ago, Saren's gotten into a feud with the Shadow Broker. He was buying a lot of information about Prothean ruins, and then suddenly he started turning the Broker's agents against him. Barla Von thinks he's got some kind of mind control device or something."

Shepard made a thoughtful sounds, "More likely he's got an army of Geth troopers to intimidate anyone who opposes him into doing his bidding."

"That could be too, but that's not what it sounded like. Anyway, the Shadow Broker put out a hit on a number of former agents, and Barla Von gave me the list. He also mentioned there's a krogan bounty hunter somewhere in C-Sec right now... probably been detained. He suggests we ask him about details on his target."

"What good would that do?" Williams asked, "I mean, even if the Broker's agents are working for Saren, that doesn't mean they know anything about what he's up to."

"It's a lead either way," Shepard said, "If nothing else it'll give us a better idea of why Saren betrayed the Shadow Broker. That could lead us to find out what he was really after on Eden Prime."

Alenko asked, "You don't think he was after the beacon?"

"He was after whatever was in the beacon, that much is for certain."

There was a brief pause in the channel, and in the lull Williams injected, "Pallin says Garrus Vakarian is about to be fired. Apparently he hasn't given up the investigation into Saren. Bet you anything that means there are still some loose ends to tie up. Only problem is, Pallin won't tell me what he's after while C-Sec is still technically running an investigation."

"That's not all that helpful," Shepard said, "But I suppose it's better than nothing. Also, Williams, are you at still at C-Sec Academy right now?"

"Still here," Williams glanced around on reflex, then laughed at herself for the silly notion. Of course she was still here, she hadn't even left the food court under Pallin's office.

"Captain Anderson says there's a C-Sec shuttle parked in the lot nearby. He pulled some favors and managed to get us access. The login name is 'Patrol' and the password is 'Paragon.' Don't tell anyone you know this or somebody will end up fired."

"Got it," Williams turned from the food court and started walking towards the open lot where the shuttle was parked. "Where am I picking you guys up?"

"We're at the Emporium now, the Hanar shop. Kaiden's buying some new bio-amps."

Williams snorted, "The El Tee better watch his budget. I only gave him enough to cover a bribe to Barla Von."

"Surprisingly, he didn't ask for much. I've got a huge wad left over, and the amps in my hardsuit are lousy. Going for a Nexus Seven or maybe even a Savant if he has one."

"Right. Well," out in the open air, the C-Sec shuttle was directly ahead. The side door was open and the shuttle was empty. Like a vehicle just begging to be stolen... only that made no sense, because anyone who tried to steal it would have to either know the password to unlock its flight computer, or would have to have military-grade information warfare skills, in which case a locked door would not be an obstacle for them at all. "I'll be there in five minutes. Try not to go broke waiting for me."

"Will do," said Alenko, and as the channel closed she heard him gasp, "Damn, is that a Prodigy Mark Fi-"

Williams chuckled to herself, then stepped into the shuttle and slid the doors closed behind her.


	28. Chapter 27

**27 - Citadel: The Wards**

The air shield covering the ward arm fluttered briefly as the shuttle passed through it, forward impellers flashing brightly in a reaction as the two forcefields combined and then separated again. They were now skimming just a few dozen meters over the tops of buildings, landing pads sweeping underneath as they did. Lieutenant Alenko banked slightly and then eased the craft into the flow of civilian traffic, letting the shuttle's navigational computer find and then hug a narrow flight corridor through which air cars of various designs were destined to follow.

As soon as they were inside the flight corridor, a VI system in the center console lit up and began to display them a map of the wards and its many points of interest. Shepard had expected this and noted with curiosity the fact that this was an inducement to orderly behavior more than anything else; without declaring an emergency or a military override, the only way to access the Citadel's navigation directory was to place your craft inside of the flight corridor and follow an orderly traffic pattern like everyone else. It was, of course, entirely possible (if not heavily frowned upon) to leave the corridor and zip over the tops of buildings straight to your destination, but that attracted attention from C-Sec and made navigation far less convenient.

"Tayseri Ward," Alenko was saying, "is a mostly asari district. It's been that way pretty much since the station was discovered, so in a lot of ways it's like a little slice of Thessia."

"What's asari culture like?" Williams asked, Probably a loaded question for a species that lives for over a thousand years, but still."

"They tend to take the long view of things. They're very patient. When they encounter a new species or a new situation, they usually sit back and observe for a while before making any sort of decision. Sometimes their decisions seem incomprehensible, until a few decades go by and the point of the plan comes out just the way they... well, planned it. They prefer to dominate other races politically and intellectually rather than militarily."

Shepard considered this answer for a moment. Then it occurred to her that this wasn't really an answer, at least not to the question Williams had just asked. "Where are you getting all that?"

"I browsed a copy of the Galactic Codex while I was waiting for you guys. Barla Von gave me a copy."

Shepard shrugged. It sounded like a lot of vague generalizations and a touch of somebody's prejudice, but it wasn't necessarily completely wrong, or even unhelpful... "Not very _relevant_. For one thing, it would be helpful to know if there are any local customs to observe or taboos to avoid. If the codex doesn't have information like that..."

"Asari can mate with just about any species in the galaxy, supposedly," Alenko went on, "So they're rumored to be extremely promiscuous. Don't make that assumption, or at least don't express it. It'll probably just piss them off."

Shepard thought back to the experience with the Consort and replayed the scene in her head. Even in a building full of glorified prostitutes, the implication that it was all about sex was something the acolytes and even the consort herself seemed to take offense to. "Noted."

"Anything else, El Tee?" Williams asked, "Is it safe to drink the water? Are cows sacred?"

"Chora's Den is an unlisted and unlicensed establishment." He took the controls again and lowered the shuttle's nose. The stuttering sound of its lift engines picked up half an octave as he descended out of traffic flow and began edging downwards between the sky scrapers and buildings, "That doesn't make the _club_ illegal, mind you. It just means that as far as the Citadel is concerned, Chora's Den doesn't exist, so anything that happens to Chora's Den is non of C-Sec's business."

Shepard frowned, "So they just turn a blind eye to the club and anything that happens there?"

"No, it means that the club is a non-entity, and nobody owns it. So if you walk in there right now and steal all the chairs, C-Sec treats that as garbage collection. The owner doesn't have a license to run a business, so he has no business keeping tables and chairs lying around like that."

"What if we go in there and start shooting people? Assuming we had weapons, which at the moment we don't."

"You can shoot the walls, the tables, the bottles, even the doors. Shoot another customer and you're an attempted murderer, shoot a vital Citadel component and you're a station offender. Shoot an under-cover C-Sec officer, and you're a dead man."

Shepard sighed as the shuttle dipped lower, diving into a canyon down between the towers in the skin of the ward arm itself. "Noted," he said, and watched the structure of the Citadel swallow them whole.

"The nav point should be good," Shepard said, "It's in a sort of back alley off the Silversun Strip. Anderson said the best way to get there is to go through Tayseri Markets and then the public transit to Field Core C12."

"How come we can't just land the shuttle there?" Alenko asked, "Field Core C12 should be easy enough to find."

"Apparently, the Citadel is such a big place that even after two thousand years, there's no comprehensive schematics for all of its internal machinery. There are all kinds of different sources and networks that have different parts of the puzzle but nobody's ever put together a global layout. So the best way to get to Field Core C12 is to get the location of it from a computer that knows exactly where that is, and the only place Anderson knows is the transit VI in Tayseri Market."

Down in the shallow chasm that was the Silversun Strip, Alenko saw a tall squarish building ahead of them that looked like a cross between a temple and a stadium and might have been confused for a place of memorial or veneration if not for the huge gaudy holographic sign on the side of it that said "Tayseri Markets - Open to the Public!" in aramic. Shepard wondered how faithful that translation really was or if the phrase _Open to the public_ was just the english equivalent to a figure of speech.

An automated traffic control VI on the roof cleared them for a landing space and the shuttle's nav system highlighted it on the holographic displays. Alenko deftly maneuvered the shuttle over the rectangular spot and then lowered them down into it, squeezing in between a sleek, sporty-looking air car and an open-bed vehicle resembling a flying pickup truck. Four small landing feet unfolded from the belly of the shuttle and its hover thrusters arrested its descent as the mass effect engines powered down.

Shepard was back on her feet and heading for the doors even before the engines had powered down. She checked her omni-tool's defensive settings - making sure the thing would at least produce a suitably crippling electromagnetic pulse if she needed it to - and then checked Tayseri Market's local directory for a list of authorized and/or known merchants here. "Expat," she said, finding the name on the directory, "Upper level, southwest corner."

"That's one," said Williams, "And the other one? Mordin was it?"

"Morlan's Famous Shop. We'll head to that one later. Alenko, hit that taxi terminal over there, get us a location on Chora's Den."

The Lieutenant looked confused for a moment, "I thought we were taking public transit there?"

"We are. _If_ you can't get the location out of the terminal."

"Ah. Right. I'll see what I can do."

Shepard slapped a door control and the shuttle's armored gul-wing door hissed upwards. She stepped out onto the rooftop landing pad, then stopped and shook off the sudden wave of vertigo as she looked upwards and saw the naked, unfiltered expanse of the Serpent Nebula stretching out to infinity all around them.

It hadn't occurred to her, while still inside the shuttle, that the station's ward arms were all open to space at all times, that the atmosphere was held in place by an ingenious array of mass effect fields, and that the thin artificial atmosphere all around them came to an abrupt end just a few dozen meters above her head. It was terrifying and exhilarating and wondrous and intimidating all at the same time.

Then came the second wave of vertigo as she looked up and saw the other four ward arms in the distance, making a huge, distant cage around them. City lights flickered there, and moving dots in orderly channels that were almost certainly air cars and shuttles like the one she'd just arrived in.

"Big place!" said Alenko, who was not, at this point, moving towards the transit console just because he was simply too awestruck by the view to even think straight.

"That your... professional opinion, Sir?" asked Williams, coming up next to them. By some trick of gravity, all three of them had somehow drifted to the edge of the rooftop, staring over a waist-high wall facing out into the expanse of the nebula, away from the Presidium. The Destiny Ascension was making a slow pass of Tayseri Ward at exactly this moment, passing slowly overhead like a giant cloud. The largest spacecraft Commander Shepard had ever seen in her life, a craft that was actually larger than most Alliance space stations, had room to maneuver between the Ward arms and even managed to look small in front of them.

Shepard took a breath, resting her palms on the top of the wall. "This isn't even a space station... this is a city."

"Right? Must be _millions_ of people here! I don't see how they're able to track everyone coming and going..."

Williams nodded, "This place makes Jump Zero look like a porta-john, and it's the largest orbital station the Alliance has."

"Jump Zero is big," Alenko said, "But this is a whole other scale. Look at these ward arms... how do they keep all this mass from flying apart?"

Shepard's own question was the one she hadn't actually voiced: how had they managed to keep a space station like this fully functional for over two thousand years? She tried to imagine the Great Pyramids of Giza upgraded with landing pads and shuttle docks and converted to a seat of power for an Egyptian Empire; she tried to imagine the Great Wall of China augmented with antiaircraft batteries and kinetic barriers to ward off invaders.

 _Humans and aliens have one major difference, and one thing in common. Do you know what they are?_ She remembered the question, asked over a meal on the SSV Masada almost seven years ago. Colonel Tooms hadn't really expected an answer, and he'd smiled amusedly at her fumbling attempts to guess before he told her, _Humans think two thousand years is a long time, and aliens think two thousand light years is a long way. And what we have in common is, we're both wrong._

The Systems Alliance now controlled a patch of the galaxy some forty thousand light years in diameter, set by a web of three dozen mass relays, over a hundred habitable worlds and over a thousand that remained largely unexplored. Two thousand years of history on a monolith like this, Shepard realized, was a lot to measure up to; the expansion in the Traverse dwarfed similar efforts by every other galactic civilization in Citadel Space, sure, but it meant nothing to a people that had seen flash-in-the-pan empires rise and fall countless times before. "No wonder they're so careful with newcomers," Shepard said, giving voice to her thoughts, "They represent a lot more than we would think."

"They probably just want to keep everything running. It has to be hard keeping all these different cultures working together."

Williams snorted, "Or maybe they just don't like humans."

"Why not?" Shepard said, turning way from the wall, "We've got oceans, beautiful women, this emotion called 'love.' According to the old vids, we have everything they want."

"Well when you put it that way, there's no reason they wouldn't like you. I mean..." he a almost tripped over his own feet as much as his words, "Humans. Us. Ma'am."

Williams stared at him, "You don't take much shore leave, do you El Tee?"

Shepard coughed a laugh, but otherwise tried not to notice. "Get me that location, Lieutenant. I'll go get us some toys."

"Aye aye, Ma'am," Alenko saluted, because doing just about anything else at this point would just make things even more awkward.

Shepard took one last look at the panorama around and above them, then crossed the rooftop for the short, narrow stairway that spiraled down one corner of the building to the lower levels. She braced herself for the overlapping layers of noise; voices, shuffling feet and tasteless advertisement over public address speakers that lacked directionality or common sense. The almost silent environment she entered instead was therefore jarring on so many levels that for a moment she thought she had made a terrible mistake by coming here.

It wasn't empty at all. Within sight of the staircase there were dozens of booths, all with sales kiosks and, clerks and machinery. It wasn't even all that quiet, what with the occasional chime of announcements and the sounds of vehicles zipping past just above the parking level. Actually, it was the fact that all of the voices she could hear were so muted, all the footsteps so careful, that the place felt more like a library or a church than a shopping mall. She thought for a moment this might have been a cultural tick of the asari, but a quick scan of the room confirmed that most of the shoppers here were either turian or salarian with a handful of humans scattered around.

She decided not to try and understand it. It was just another of a million ways the Citadel was different. Every place she'd ever been to was different, but every place she'd ever been to was also similar in other ways.

Expat was a good example of the latter. She found him at the end of a long corridor next to a stairway that lead to the lower levels. His booth was ideally placed to catch the eye of anyone trying to move from one level to the next, and when Shepard approached his booth his round alien body was reclining against a low stool propped up against the wall, as if he was lost in thought. He perked up when he saw her, then swung the stool around behind the counter and stood on it so Shepard wouldn't have to stoop down to talk to him. "Hello, Earth-clan," he said in a voice that registered like genuine enthusiasm, though coming from a volus it could have meant anything, "No doubt you've just come back from the colonies. Will you be needing supplies?"

"What colonies are you talking about?" Shepard asked.

"Oh, my mistake, Earth-clan. I assumed... well, it doesn't matter. Feros, Noveria... well, if you haven't heard of them yet, I'm sure you will soon. But it doesn't matter where you hail from. My goods are available to all."

Shepard turned to the sales terminal on the counter next to him, but in the mean time said, "Let's see what you've got. Looking for something special myself."

The volus - Expat, supposedly - shifted his weight ponderously, "Basic commercial-grade defensive implements. Sirta Foundation medical exoskeletons, Hahne-Kedar vacuum suits."

Shepard scrolled through the kiosk, browsing through menus under a heading called "Outfitting." From what she could immediately tell, Expat was running his shop as a kind of outdoor supply retailer; among other headings he also had various forms of medical equipment, exploration, equipment, omni-tool upgrades, climbing gear, jump jets and shield rigs. Shepard's first thought was that the commercial-grade equipment would probably be a step down from the military-grade gear the Alliance had provided its soldiers... then she remembered that the licenses for much of the Navy's hardware had been purchased wholesale from Elkoss Combine with a special eye towards affordability rather than effectiveness. This realization hit her doubly hard as she browsed through Expat's catalog and stopped at an armor rig that made her heart thump in her ribcage. "What is that?" she asked, pointing at the screen.

Expat looked at a small screen on the back of the terminal so he could see what she was looking at. He nodded slowly, "That is the Colossus Mark Three. Military-style hardsuit. It is not particularly popular, though I am not sure why. Shield capacity is seventy five kilojoules, offer a strong power assist for hand to hand combat or high-recoil weapons."

Shepard felt an itch on the back of her neck. "I assume Mark three is the highest grade you sell?"

"It is the highest grade I have the license to. I also have a pre-order for the Hyperguardian Series once it's finally released."

"Seventy five kilojoules," Williams leaned over the counter, "Aldrin Labs' Onyx Armor is the most advanced in the Alliance and it peaks at just under thirty nine."

"I don't sell anything from Aldrin Labs," Expat said, shaking his head, "If what you say is true, that would explain why there's so little demand for it."

Shepard asked, "So how much are you charging for the Colossus specs?"

"Fifty five thousand credits. I'll also throw in the Umbra tactical visor for fifteen thousand more."

"You've got yourself a deal. We'll take the armor, plus sixty units of omni-gel." Shepard glanced back at Williams as she said this, "Think we could afford some warranty coverage too?"

"The design software comes with first-party diagnostic and repair functions," Expat said, then took a deep hissing breath and added, "Kasa Fabrications doesn't leave its customers twisting in the proverbial wind. That's why I never sell from Hahne-Kedar either."

The kiosk prompted Shepard to confirm the software for the manufacture of the Mark Three "Colossus" armor, described in the invoice as _Formal Wear Plus Sunglasses_. She entered Cargo bay D22 as the delivery address for the omni-gel, and then had Chief Williams step forward to enter the Normandy's account information. And only once the order was processed and confirmed did Shepard add, "You seem to know something about the colonies that I don't. Should I be worried?"

Expat shifted his weight back and forth and then said slowly, "Very."

"Do you sell anything that might make me a little less worried? Maybe a little care package in support of your local Alliance heroes?"

"I personally don't. But down on the lower level at Morlan's Famous Shop, they sell a nice little self-contained kit for adventurers like yourself. It should do nicely for your purposes." A slow, hissing breath, then, "It's best not to engage Morlan in conversation. His memory is good, even for a salarian, but he also can't keep a secret."

"I'll head there next" Shepard said, "What's this Armax Arsenal fire control suite?"

"That," Expat said patiently, "Probably wouldn't interest you unless you had an Armax Arsenal fabrication license for armor or personal defense weapons. It's a motion control upgrade that boosts accuracy of long-ranged weapons in combat situations. Snipers using this software have boasted a ninety five percent hit rate against moving targets."

"You don't sell the license for Armax Arsenal?"

" _Nobody_ does. They only furnish the license to preferred customers. Mostly competitors in the Armax Arena, and of course the famous Armali Sniper Corps. Armax Arsenal gear uses a large amount of rare elements, including element zero, so the designs are useless unless you also buy their specialized manufacturing kits."

"How much _is_ that fire control suite?" Williams asked, looking over her shoulder.

"Two hundred and fifty thousand."

Williams clucked her tongue, "Hardly seems worth it. We don't even-"

"That is acceptable," Shepard said, and tapped the kiosk to confirm the order. Then she nodded and smiled to Expat, downloaded the data - receipts, license, order and tracking information, etc - into her omni-tool and moved on tot he stairs.

"You seem to be expecting a great deal of trouble in the future, Earth-clan," Expat said as she turned, "I wish you the best of luck on your travels!"

"Likewise, Expat." Shepard turned to leave, but paused just enough for Williams to come up alongside her. "Go see if Alenko needs help with that terminal. If he's finished, bring him down here."

"On it, Ma'am."

Shepard turned for the stairs now, starting down for the lower level. She had no reason to suspect she would have a lot of trouble getting her hands on some specialized less-than-legal equipment, but...

"Hey! Commander Shepard?" a man in military-style fatigues and platinum blond hair was standing at the top of the stairs with his back against the wall as if he belonged exactly where he was and nowhere else. His uniform - if it was that - had no recognizeable insignia and didn't seem to be actual military, more like military surplus or else one of the civilian jumpers used by commercial spacers. He seemed more like a guy hanging out on the porch in front of his own house, except there was nothing nearby that might have been mistaken for a residence. "Oh my god, it is you! You're Commander Shepard, the hero of Eden Prime!"

She wondered briefly if the guy would start following her down the stairs if she ignored him and moved on. A witness to a potential felony would be a complication she didn't need, so she stopped at the top of the stairs and tried to look casual. "Yes, hello," she reached over, shook his hand, tried to force a faint smile.

"I'm so honored to meet you!" he said, enjoying the handshake to a degree that could only have been too much.

"Nice to meet you too," Shepard said, "And you are...?"

"I'm Conrad. Conrad Verner. They say you killed over a hundred geth on Eden Prime!"

Shepard shrugged, "They say alot of things. I was too busy killing them keep count."

Verner's smile faded just a bit. "Hey. Listen. I know you're probably busy, but do you have time for a quick autograph?" She felt something slap against her bicep and realized that Verner had started poking her with a datapad. A cheap datapad. The kind of thing a university student would have bought third hand from the campus book store because he was too broke to afford a real one. Funny, he doesn't seem that young...

But he was harmless, and she had things to do, so she answered with a safe "I suppose." She took his cheap hand terminal and the silver permanent marker from his hand and scribbled her name on a corner of the casing, then handed it back to him.

Verner took the pad, stared at it for a moment. His smile faded even more, transmuted into something halfway between awe and reverence. "Thanks. I really appreciate it. My wife is going to be so impressed!"

"Happy to help," Shepard said, "Now if there's nothing else..."

"Yeah, you're probably busy saving the galaxy and everything! I'll let you get back to work. Hey, next time you're on Earth I'd love to buy you a drink or something... that would be cool, right?"

The word 'unacceptable' was on the tip of her tongue just as Conrad Verner, grinning from ear to ear, floated off on the breeze like a flower petal and vanished into the thin crowd of shoppers.

"Well," Shepard said to herself, "That was not interesting..." the crowds parted again and she saw Alenko and Williams coming through it towards her, seemingly filling the void left by Verner's passing. She sighed and tilted her chin at the stairs. Both of them nodded and followed her down.


	29. Chapter 28

**28 - Citadel: Chora's Den**

Field Core C12 was surprisingly hard to find even when they knew exactly where to find it. Not far from the Markets, the only vehicular access was through a deep but narrow ditch carved right through the deep structure of the ward arm. The problem was, it was on the other side of the ditch, tucked into a part of the station that wasn't really supposed to be inhabited. Power cores and recycling equipment occupied a space that was normally only used by the keepers; the enigmatic custodians of the Citadel utterly refused to make accommodations tailored to the other visitors of the station, but they also declined to exclude them from any part of the station unless it actually interfered with their business.

The ditch was almost a hundred meters wide and at least twice that in depth. The two parallel pedways that crossed it merged with a landing that looked like a giant garbage chute. The only evidence that there was anything there worth visiting was the large tacky-looking holographic dancing girl above the door and the honeycomb pattern on the wall that gave them away as a form of meta-material covering, transparent from one side and completely opaque from the other.

Alenko flew the shuttle on a slow pass of the parallel pedways, then rose up and out of the trench to find a convenient landing site. And convenient it was: a flat patch of empty cermet tucked into a space behind a high-rise apartment building that probably served as a receiving dock of some kind. Parking here was probably illegal, but it wasn't like anyone was going to tow a C-Sec shuttle, now was it?

The spot was most convenient for the large square opening in the ground just a few meters away that lead into a set of utility corridors that spiraled down and down through the body of the station. Keeper tunnels, Shepard had heard them called. They ran all through the structure of the Citadel and allowed access to some of the hidden spaces of the station, but no one but the keepers knew where they all went or how to navigate through the intricate network of ramps and corridors. That a place like Chora's Den could only be accessed through one made a certain amount of sense.

"Captain said to follow that tunnel down sixty meters. It's the fourth sub-level, third pressure door from the top," Alenko said, standing up from the pilot's seat as the engine spooled down, "He says there's no password to get in, but there's a steep cover charge for salarians and drell."

"What's a drell?" Williams asked.

"I don't know, but there's a steep cover charge for them."

Left the operator's seat next to him and ducked into the passenger compartment where their 'sporting goods' had been stowed. Three of the black metal cases of Morlan's so-called 'care packages' lay open on the floor where Williams had taken inventory of them. Each contained a small tube of medi-gel, a small belt-mounted kinetic barrier system with a two-kilojoule power cell, one very large tube of omni-gel, and a small, strange-looking pistol folded up in a corner of the case next to two thermal clips.

Shepard unfolded the pistol in her hand, felt the weight, checked the sights, then folded it back again and tucked into her jumpsuit along with the two spare clips. Alenko and Williams did the same, and all three clipped the shield cells to the backs of their belts. Shepard checked each of them with a glance, answering the silent question with a silent answer: _Be ready for anything._

The keeper tunnel made a rectangular spiral downwards in something halfway between a ramp and a stairway. The short, shallow steps meant for the pointy insect-like legs of the keepers were painfully awkward for human-sized feet. Shepard eventually gave up trying to keep her footing and instead walked sideways for most of the descent. By the time they passed the second sub-level, Alenko and Williams were doing the same.

"Most of the citadel races are roughly humanoid," Williams said, "So how come the Asari don't make these tunnels more accessible?"

"Who knows? Maybe this used to be a salarian district or something?"

Two more levels down, Shepard stopped in a perfectly ordinary-looking veranda or lobby of some sort that seemed remarkable only for how unremarkable it was. The spiraling passage they'd come through had felt too low and too awkward for human travel, clearly designed with the shorter, insectoid 'keepers' in mind, but the space just outside the fourth sub-level pressure door clashed with those tunnels in some way, like a back alley that fed directly into a mall parking lot. The atmosphere was somehow different, though Shepard couldn't tell why.

She palmed the pressure door and it hissed open, top and bottom parting vertically. The pedway across the chasm stretched in front of them, almost a hundred meters long and ending on a wide flat landing that - Shepard noted - might have been wide enough to land the shuttle if they were in a big enough hurry. In fact, now that she looked at it, the pedway bridge they were on was just about wide enough to land the shuttle on if Alenko had a good enough hand on the controls. The other bridge, the twin of this one, wasn't completely parallel after all and actually angled slightly upwards, connecting to the near side of the chasm one level higher. Shepard wondered seriously if this place would be such an out-of-the-way dive bar if someone had taken the time to build landing pads into the sides of these bridges to make the place more accessible to visitors. But then, its lack of accessibility was probably the whole point of this place, wasn't it?

They fell into a line as they walked, soldiers' instincts kicking in as all three of them realized, independently, that this pedway was a _really_ good place for an ambush. Shepard kept the connection to her omni-tool buzzing in the foreground of her mind, kept her sensors (limited as they are without her hardsuit) ghosting in her personal view should anything draw attention to itself. They passed two turians and a human crossing in the opposite direction, none of whom paid them even a second glance. Shepard noted this too; Alliance soldiers were no rare sight in this place.

A krogan bouncer met them at the door as they reached the landing, wearing heavy armor and armed with a shotgun. Armed openly, at that, which surprised Shepard only for a moment until she considered the nature of the place they had come to visit. He looked them over for a moment, then asked "I don't recognize you, Alliance. State your business."

The krogan's voice was as intimidating as his stature. The thick-shelled biped reptile had evolved from a tortoise-like ancestor on a planet that had spawned some of the most horrific predators in the universe. His pointy, reptilian skull was covered by a layer of bone and cartilage, as was most of the rest of his body underneath his heavy armor. Including the huge hump of bone and muscle that rose above and behind his neck and head, he stood almost seven feet tall and weighed easily three hundred kilograms, and between the naturally high gravity and evolutionary arms race of his home world, Shepard knew his bulk should not be mistaken for clumsiness. This could be a real problem...

"What do you mean you don't recognize us?" Alenko said, without missing a beat, "We were just here the other night!"

The krogan stared at him, his eyes searching his face. "Oh yeah... I remember now. Go on in, kid. But don't start any trouble."

Shepard tried not to chuckle as he opened the door for them. The thing was, krogan were huge, fast, breathtakingly lethal and borderline immortal. But they were also, on average, incredibly stupid.

They stepped into a room that was wrapped around a large center column whose purpose Shepard couldn't immediately identity. A stage built over the center column provided both the roof of the bar and a platform for a half dozen asari women, pole-dancing erotically in improbable-looking lingerie.

Williams let out a sigh. "Twenty thousand light years from where humanity began, in the heart of a galactic civilization three thousand years in the making... and we walk into a bar filled with men drooling over half-naked women shaking their asses on stage."

Shepard nodded, drinking in the irony. "Can't decide if that's funny or sad."

"What? You don't think they're here for the food?" Alenko muttered.

It would be difficult to survey the entire room, Shepard realized. The huge column in the center took up a lot of space, and the tables and chairs around its perimeter dominated the rest; the place was more like a circular hallway than a large open space. "You two circle that way," Shepard said, and started in the opposite direction. Her first thought was that the place wasn't known for its quality; half the tables were empty, and more than a few of the asari dancers looked like they were starved or sleep or enthusiasm. The few patrons around the bar were slouched over or sunken in their chairs with sullen looks in their eyes. Strange how universal that look really was; turns, humans, even krogan, there was something about the haunted, far-away look of a man who was drinking because there was something he wanted to _forget_.

Shepard tapped her omni-tool and pulled up two images in her personal view, let them hang in the corner of her vision for a moment. Both of these were portraits of officers, professionally done and with full dress uniform with a staged background of whatever service they had enlisted. One was a bald caucasian human in a C-Sec uniform with the five-point flower icon of the Citadel in the background, the other was a black-shelled turian with white, streaky clan markings on his face in black and blue turian infantry battle suit. Ironically, the human was the more nondescript of the two; his face was so plain and ordinary that half the humans in this bar could have been him with a hat on.

The turian, on the other hand, was far more distinct, with features - in combination with his clan markings - that struck Shepard's eye as vaguely predatory. He would have stood out even in the densest crowd, but here in Chora's Den, Shepard found him sitting alone, nursing a tall glass of something dark red and cloudy and all but ignoring the naked asari kneeling on his table, his swinging like an unbalanced gyroscope. He was still in uniform - possibly the same battle suit from his portrait - but the military insignias were missing from his shoulders and he was, as far as she could tell, unarmed.

She stopped at his table, wondering how to proceed. An introduction seemed in order, not that a human lieutenant commander had any reason to strike up a conversation with a turian general. Lacking such a proper excuse, Shepard decided to do what she always did: she stormed right in and fired. "General Oraka, is it?"

The turian's eyes tracked up until he met hers. Then his mandibles turned up and outwards in something not unlike a smile. "Commander Shepard," he said, speaking in accented and slightly-slurred English, "I was just reviewing your battle report from Eden Prime. It was quite a read."

Shepard bristled. She hated being at a disadvantage, and she suspected this turian knew this. Rather than put her irritation on display, she decided to play it off. "It wasn't our finest hour. I'm the first to admit, it could have gone better."

"As your kind would say, _bullshit_. You went in against an unknown and technologically superior enemy with no intelligence, a rapidly-evolving objective, and only fifteen minutes advanced warning. That's a military strategists' worst nightmare. But it seems like you handled it well enough. For a human." Oraka raised his glass, a silent toast to Shepard - or to her accomplishment, or to himself, it was hard to tell - and then tipped the glass and gulped its contents in one swallow. "Anyway," he said with a strong exhale that smelled like benzene fumes, "What can I do for you?"

"Shaira sent me," Shepard said, "I'm here on her behalf. She says your lies are hurting her."

Oraka snorted, "Good. She's been killing me for _weeks_."

"You don't mean literally, do you?"

He sighed, and continued on in palavic while Shepard's omni-tool flashed a text translation on her personal view. "I've seen a lot of horrible things in my days, Commander. There's only one woman in this whole damn galaxy that helps me forget it. And in three weeks I step down from active service and enjoy my retirement."

The sadness in his tone transcended all language barriers. "So you wanted to spend your retirement with Shaira..."

"And she rejected me," Oraka said, and in a flash he was shouting, "She rejected _me_! I'm Septimus Fucking Oraka, General of the Turian Fleet, chief strategic advisor to Primarch Fedorian, and she rejected _me_!"

"Is it really worth it?" Shepard asked, "there must be other women."

"Maybe that's how it is for humans," Oraka said, "It's not just any woman I want. It's her, and her alone."

"General..."

"Look, kid," he'd switched back to English again, his words slurring slightly less than before now that his blood was flowing harder, "I appreciate what you're trying to do, but don't waste your time."

Shepard put her palms down on the table and leaned over it, looming over him. "Have you ever won a battle by sitting around and moping in a bar, Mister Chief Strategic Advisor?"

"Hah!" Oraka poured himself another glass and stared at it for a long moment. Somehow, he still managed not to notice the naked asari gyrating on his table, but at least now this seemed to make sense. "A _hopeless_ battle. That's what this feels like, alright. Shit, how'd I let it come to this?" He sipped his drink and sat back in his chair, benzene fumes pouring out of his throat. "So you think it's that easy? Just straighten up and act like a general?"

"I never said it was easy. And what I think is that you have to step back and look at the bigger picture. You're a general of the Turian Fleet. You're an important man. You're important to your people, to your soldiers, to the Primarch, to the Citadel, to the whole of galactic peace. More than that, you're an example for others. You lead, they follow. People like you hold all of civilization together... you think someone like you could be completely undone just because you got rejected by a woman?"

Oraka barked a laugh, "Whole empires have been destroyed that way. There is nothing in this universe more unstoppable or more destructive than women."

Shepard's knee-jerk reaction was to take that as an inherently sexist remark, but considering the entire asari species was morphologically female, she wasn't sure he was wrong about this.

"Maybe you're right," Oraka went on, "This is... petty."

"It's not petty. It's _painful_ ," Shepard said, "It's a bad wound, and it sucks. But you've been wounded before, and you know your duty is much bigger than that. And this," she gestured around as if seeing Chora's Den for the first time, "This is no place for someone of your stature, General Oraka."

"Yeah... alright. I'll talk to her. After I've had a cold shower. Or two."

Did cold showers really work for turians?

Did cold showers really work for _humans_?

Shepard suddenly caught herself trying to picture General Oraka in the shower and, having no idea what a naked turian even looked like, failed miserably. She shook the image out and refocussed just in time to see him stand up unsteadily, wobble a bit, and then sit back down. "Ugh..." he groaned, slouched back in his chair, and then for the first time seemed to notice that there was a very spirited and very naked asari girl undulating on his table with her thighs spread to either side of his placemat. He smiled slightly and sank back deeper into his chair, "So... look, you're a bright kid. Want to earn a few extra credits?"

The timing of that particular question was rife with unfortunate implications, but assuming Oraka was too drunk to realize this, Shepard said, "Depends. What do you want me to do?"

"Xeltan, the elcor diplomat... he believes Shaira leaked news of his mental illness to the extranet, basically destroying his career."

"Why does he believe _that_?" Not that she couldn't guess, but Oraka was off to a good start and Shepard wanted him to build some momentum.

"Because I told him. Look, I just need you to convince him of the truth."

"Can't you just tell him yourself?"

"Well, last time he saw me, I was disparaging his ancestors and shouting his medical records in public... here, take this," Oraka opened his omni-tool and pointed the holographic gauntlet at Shepard. Her tool lit up in response and her personal view told her it had just receieved a small data file. "It's a receipt from an information broker on Ilium. It shows where I got my info. It will exonerate Shaira and convince the elcor."

"Just out of curiosity," Shepard asked, "Why would you leak Xeltan's secrets in the first place? Just to embarass Shaira..."

"He's an old rival of mine. I actually intended to blackmail him, but after that argument with Shaira and a couple of rounds of menaian brandy, my priorities may have gone askew just a _bit_."

Shepard grinned. "A _bit_."

"Well," Oraka lifted what was left of his glass again, "here's to soldiers acting like soldiers." He tipped it one last time, gulped it down, then set it down on the table with an air of finality. The asari dancer seemed to give up at this point, sauntered down from his table and gracefully wandered off towards a back room halfway around the circumference of the room.

"You know," Oraka stood up unsteadily and started a shuddering, unsteady walk towards the door, "You'd make a pretty good general yourself some day."

Shepard moved past his table without a backward glance. If the turian general was going to take a drunken stumble off the pedway and plumet to his untimely death, she didn't want to know about it. Besides, a far greater spectacle had already caught her attention in the doorway where the asari dancer had gone through. A krogan in dark red light armor was standing face to face with two heavily armed and armored krogan and a salarian. It was notable only because the latter three seemed very, very nervous, while the one in the light armor looked like he was trying to decide which one of them he was going to kill first. _Krogan bounty hunter,_ Shepard thought. She kept her distance, but set her translator on directional mode so she could listen without needing to hear.

"... think you get the idea," said the red one in urdua. His voice was a low rumble that barely registered over the music, "So how do you want to play this, Strux?" the red one surged forward. Shepard noticed a line of jagged scars down the side of his face, from the bony plates of his skull all the way down the side of his neck. They looked like claw marks from some ferocious predator. It struck her eye as the mark of a hardened badass, which for a krogan was really saying something.

The salarian took a step back and put his hand on his weapon. The other two krogan stepped back as well, but closed ranks to block his path. One of them said, "Back off, Wrex! You don't want to do this here!"

"Don't I?" The red one took another step forward.

The salarian drew his weapon - a carnifex hand cannon modified with a barrel extension - and one of the krogan slipped a shotgun off the hardpoint at his back. Nobody else in the bar seemed to pay this any attention, although the patrons nearest the door scooted carefully away from this as if they were afraid of something being spilled on them.

"Fist told us to take you down if you showed up here," the other krogan - the one with his weapon drawn - said.

"So what are you waiting for?" said the red one, Wrex apparently, "I'm standing right here."

None of the guards budged. Even the one with the weapon stopped short of actually pointing it at him. None of them seemed to have any solid idea of what to do next. Which meant that actually having to _fight_ this visitor wasn't something any of them thought was a survivable choice. "That's interesting..." Shepard said aloud, and crept slightly closer.

Wrex stood his ground, but didn't advance any farther. "This is Fists' only chance," he said, lowering his voice slightly, "If he's smart, he'll take it."

"He's not coming out, Wrex," said the first krogan, "End of story."

"This story's just _beginning_ , Strux." Wrex glared at the three of them for a long moment, then turned like a battleship and marched towards the door. He moved with such forcefulness that he very nearly bulldozed Alenko and Williams, who had been watching from the other side of the circle. "Outa my way, humans, I have no quarrel with you," he grumbled, and marched through them like a pair of grass stalks.

Williams bent out of his way, Alenko took a giant step sideways and barely managed to clear his bulk. A moment later, his eyes met Shepard's with a question in them. She answered with an equally silent answer, nodding her head at Wrex has he went. Alenko nodded, counted off a few seconds, then walked off to follow the krogan as he left the room.

The salarian and the two body guards retreated back into the passageway, not entirely relaxed but at least not on the verge of a life or death struggle. Shepard joined Williams halfway, and the Gunnery Chief immediately growled, "Found Harkin."

"Great. What'd he say?"

"Among _other_ things," the sneer in her voice told most of the story, "He says Garrus is investigating someone named Doctor Michel. She runs a medical clinic over on the other side of the strip, he thinks he's probably staking the place out."

"Did he say _why_?"

"Nope. And I didn't ask. Also, he said something Captain Anderson being a former spectre... it's supposed to be this big secret the Council's been covering up for years."

Shepard paused at this. Ambassador Udina had said something about Anderson and Saren having a history together... "You think there's any truth to that?"

"Coming from _that_ asshole? Probably not."

"Alright, so we've got our next lead..." Shepard started for the door, taking the long circuitous route through the bar.

The krogan, Wrex, was still on the landing just outside the bar, waiting patiently at a waist-high wall that doubled as a safety railing. Alenko was nowhere in sight, which was actually something of a relief, since any attempt to stay with the krogan bounty hunter as he loitered around here would look incredibly suspicious. She wondered what the big guy was waiting for; either he was stalking the place, waiting for Fist to try to make a run for it, or he was waiting for closing time so he could storm the place without worrying about collateral damage. Or maybe he was waiting for a ride from one of his cohorts to come and pick him up.

Shepard and Williams walked past him and made their way across the pedway, heading for the keeper tunnel and the shuttle above. Halfway across, Shepard opened her omni-tool and pinged Alenko's contact. He answered almost immediately, his voice slightly hushed, "Commander?"

"Where are you?"

"Almost to the shuttle now. That krogan called somebody on his omni and he's staying put. I think he's waiting for a ride. Didn't want to look like I was following him, so I just moved on."

"Good thinking, Lieutenant. Once you get to the shuttle, stay there, keep an eye on the place from an overwatch position. We've got a lead on Garrus Vakarian, so we'll take the shuHH-" the air left her lungs with a violent burst of heat and pressure as something slammed into her ribcage like a baseball bat. A panel of kinetic barriers flashed bright orange and then exploded all around her, shattering the projectile and swatting its fragments away from her, but the bullet still transferred enough kinetic energy into her that it was like getting kicked in the chest by a clydesdale.

Williams had her pistol out in eight tenths of a second and was already firing back at what she had figured out was the source of the shot. A loan figured stood at the top of the trench, the glint of a sniper rifle's scope obscuring part of its face. It seemed to ignore the storm of bullets peppering the wall it was using as cover...

 _Storm of bullets?_ Shepard heard the stuttering retort from Williams' pistol and realized, with a start, that it was firing full auto. Williams had either known this already, or had very quickly figured it out and was now firing off short, five-round bursts at the sniper above them... then she spun and fell back backwards as if propelled by a rocket, kinetic barriers flashing and failing as the next shot took her in the shoulder. Her pistol spun away and tumbled over the edge of the pedway. Whatever that sniper was using, it packed a hell of a punch.

"What was that? Commander? Commander are you okay?!" It was Alenko in her ear. Comms were still open.

The first shot had knocked the wind out of her, but she managed to catch enough breath to spit, "Under fire! Need assistance!"

"I'm almost to the top! I can cover you!"

A glint of red light caught her eye. The dot of a laser sight dancing across her face as the sniper lined up a headshot. Here on the pedway, he had her dead to rights; no cover, no shields, and nowhere to go. _Well, shit..._

Shepard raised her weapon at the figure on the top of the trench and fired in what she was sure was an utterly useless gesture of defiance. She saw the sniper ignore her and fire back: a muzzle flash, and the clap of the rifle signing her end. Then she saw a faint iridescent shimmer in the air around her, and a ripple like waves on a pond as the rifle bullet deflected away from her and cratered into the pedway just inches from her head.

And then four hundred kilograms of krogan masculinity stepped over her like a man stepping over a child's action figure. He was holding his fist over his head, glowing incandescence spreading from it like an umbrella. Shepard had seen this before. A biotic field.

A biotic krogan.

 _No wonder those guards were so scared of him._

Shepard opened her omni-tool, loaded a logic bomb, and framed the target in her personal view. She set her target and sent the data in a pulse of energy on frequencies that most electronics weren't designed to receive and therefore weren't smart enough to ignore.

After a long delay - long enough to be a full manual reload of a thermal clip - the sniper rifle fired again with a harsh thunderclap and once again the shell deflected off the biotic barrier, spiraling off uselessly into the air. Wrex grumbled something in urdni and then pulled from the back of his armor something that was either an enormous shotgun or a small grenade launcher. Or possibly both, depending on how it was loaded...

The bark of the shotgun sounded like a bomb going off, like an artillery shell landing directly next to your head. It sent a spray of pellets downrange that each could have been the size of flashlight batteries, and a four-foot chunk of wall near the sniper exploded into a shower of dust. He fired three shots, one after another, the sniper cowering back under cover with each blast. "So who did you piss off, squishy?" Wrex said, turning slightly so he could glance back at Shepard, "Same people as me, I take it?"

"If you are who I think you are, yes." Shepard struggled to her feet and then keyed the audio channel again, "Kaiden?"

A brief delay, then a rushed, "Eyes on!"

"Execute."

What happened next happened almost all at once. The sniper's rifle fired again, but this time the cover for the thermal clip popped open as the shooter pulled the trigger and the clip exploded in its casing, bursting in the sniper's face. Shepard heard a woman scream from the top of the trench, then saw a flicker of light and a ripple in the air as Alenko's biotic field sent her tumbling high into the air. The now exposed sniper could do nothing else but flail uselessly in the air as gunfire from Shepard and Williams both tore through her barriers and drew blood. Eventually the ripple in the air dissipated and she began to fall to the ground, the distant, slightly muffled clatter of automatic gunfire as Alenko's machinepistol finished the argument once and for all.

"Target cleared," Alenko said over comms. A new figure appeared at the top of the trench, this time in an Alliance uniform, and waved down at them.

Shepard waved back. "Gather up what you can and get out of sight. We'll be up there shortly. Williams, you okay over there?"

Chief Williams hadn't moved from where she'd fallen, but at the Commander's question she slowly raised one hand and gave a thumbs-up. "Need a minute," she rasped, and tried turning over, "Shoulder's dislocated..."

"Weird," the krogan lowered his biotic field and turned back to Shepard. He was smiling, which on a krogan looked more than a little intimidating. "I didn't know humans had biotics."

"Few in the military. A couple dozen or so," Shepard admitted. She clutched the spot on her chest that had taken the brunt of the impact. It would bruise like hell tomorrow, but it was nothing compared to what would have happened without a shield. "I didn't know krogan had biotics."

"I'm not a biotic. I'm an _asshole_." Wrex collapsed his shotgun back into its storage configuration, clipped it to the back of his armor and started walking cross towards the keeper tunnels. "So that biotic up there..." he said over his shoulder, "is that the same little pyjak you had following me?"

Shepard nodded and decided to cut to the chase as she fell into step behind him. Williams followed behind, right arm dangling uselessly. "I'm Commander Shepard, Alliance Navy. We're trying to bring down Saren. Barla Von said to talk to you."

"Barla Von is a wise man. We may share a common goal, human."

"Enlighten me."

"I've been hired to deal with the owner of Chora's Den. A guy named Fist. If you talked to Barla Von, I'm guessing you know that some of the Broker's agents have been pushing misinformation on him, trying to isolate his network."

Williams nodded, her voice slightly strained, "So we've heard."

"Well, the Broker sent me to put Fist on notice. Not even a straight up hit, more of a side job, really," Wrex shrugged and went on, "At least it _would_ have been that. But Fist did something very silly last night, and now I'm going to have to _kill_ him."

"Silly?" Shepard picked up the pace to close in on him. She fell in next to him just before he reached the entrance to the keeper tunnel and somehow managed to avoid getting crushed against the side of the doorway next to him. "Like what?"

"There's a quarian pilgrim on the Citadel who's been trying to trade information to the Shadow Broker. Somebody's been trying to take her out. She went to Fist looking for a safe place to hide out. He promised to arrange a direct meeting with the Shadow Broker. Instead, he contacted Saren."

"What's Saren's interest in some random quarian?"

"You'd have to ask Saren about that. Point is, the Broker doesn't like his agents intercepting possible trades. It makes him look bad, untrustworthy. So my orders got changed, and now Fist is a marked man and he _knows_ it."

By now they were almost at the top of the keeper tunnel. Lieutenant Alenko meet them at the top; his eyes widened at the sight of Wrex, but he seemed to relax when Shepard and Williams marched up behind him rather than draped over his forearms like a couple of animal pelts. "You know anything about a turian investigator named Garrus Vakarian?"

"Yeah, I know him. We traded info this morning, just after I got that mission update. He told me about the Saren connection, and I told him about the quarian."

Alenko took a breath, trying to keep ahead of Wrex as he started to walk off, "Do you know anything about the information the quarian wanted to sell?"

"I know that Saren really doesn't want it getting out. He paid Fist a small fortune to get rid of her, but Fist is getting cold feet with all the scrutiny around him."

Shepard smiled, "So _that_ 's why you were there putting on a show at his bar."

Wrex nodded again, this time with a gambler's grin, "Nothing like a little pressure to get things moving. I figure if he gets scared enough, he'll either barricade himself in that shitty little club and try to wait this out, or he'll try to get off station some place safe. Either way, I've got him cornered like a baby klixen, and whenever he makes his move, I've got his ass."

Shepard said, "I don't suppose you could use a little help on that task. Not that you necessarily need it..."

"Hah! You kidding me?" Wrex turned to her with a sour look, "Fist has got, what, eighteen body guards? Including at least four krogan? Those aint exactly good odds. I'm liable to get my ass shot off fifty ways from Sunday on this job. _Hell yes_ I could use some help!"

Williams asked, "Why would you even take the job if you were so sure you couldn't do it?"

"Because that's never stopped me before, and I might just get lucky and pull it off anyway. Because the money is too good not to try it, and I've got plans for that cash. Because I love a good fight, even a hopeless one. But most of all, because I'm krogan." He said the last part flatly and plainly, as if that explained absolutely everything. And maybe it did, in a way. From what Shepard had heard, the "natural" krogan lifespan could only ever be estimated, because there was no verifiable record of a krogan ever dying from old age. With their redundant organs and regenerative abilities, no matter how old they got, _something else_ always killed them eventually. Usually, something a bigger and tougher, or else just something very numerous.

"Well we don't have a lot of firepower," Shepard said, "But we've got our omni-tools, and Kaiden's biotics are helpful..."

"We've got more than _that_ , Commander." Alenko bobbed his head towards their borrowed C-Sec shuttle and lead them all that way. Inside the still-open hatch, Shepard saw the three remaining "care packages" from Morlan's famous shop, along with several other items that weren't there before: a dead Asari with most of her skull missing, wearing a complicated-looking hardsuit stained with her blood, and a huge octagonal-cased weapon with a top mounted telescope and a barrel the size of a baseball bat. Just from looking at it, Shepard guessed at least fifteen millimeters muzzle diameter, which meant this weapon probably consumed an entire thermal clip with every single shot. That would put it in a similar class of the M-92 Mantis in terms of stopping power, except...

"Well. That would have sucked," Wrex said, looking at the weapon on the floor of the shuttle, "Didn't think Fist had it in him."

"Elaborate," Shepard said. Alenko closed the hatch behind her and moved forward, stepping into the pilot's seat of the shuttle.

"That's an M-98 Widow. Super-heavy class sniper rifle." As he said this, Wrex took a small step to his left, moving imperceptibly closer to Chief Williams, still awkwardly clutching her dislocated shoulder, "The nakmor clan invented it, and then Ariake Technologies developed a hardsuit robust enough to control the recoil."

"A hardsuit like _that_?" Shepard asked, looking down at the dead sniper. The suit was matte black, with an inner layer packed with overlapping soft-fiber actuators and power feeds protected by an outer layer of interlocking ceramic and carbon-fiber plates. It made standard Alliance heavy armor look like a child's pajamas.

"That's the one," Wrex said, "Power assist, with autonomic fire control software. I've seen a few of these around. They're mainly used by people who specialize in killing krogan."

Shepard tilted her head as she caught his meaning. "You think this sniper was meant for you."

"Yeah..." he reached up with one enormous, meaty hand and grabbed Williams' bicep. Her head had just barely begun to turn when his wrist gave the subtlest twitch; a sickening "pop" came out of Williams' shoulder, followed by a surprised yelp like a dog being kicked. "Until she saw a higher priority target and went after that one instead," Wrex finished. He focussed on Williams for a moment, tilted his head to the side. She wiggled her reset arm, then gave him look of pure hatred, followed by a thumbs up.

Shepard nodded in agreement, "Interesting... hey Kaiden?"

"Yes Ma'am?" he glanced back from the cockpit.

"Take surveillance on the bar. Stay out of sight."

Alenko looked briefly alarmed at the prospect. "Why me, Ma'am?"

"Because between the four of us, you're the best armed and the least conspicuous."

Alenko glanced at the folded up machine pistol on his belt before he realized she wasn't talking about his guns. He nodded, stood and said "Aye aye, Ma'am. I'll radio the moment anything happens."

"Especially if that turian shows up. If he's not at the medical clinic, we're coming straight back here. Probably rolling in hard, so be ready for that."

Alenko nodded, then hit the switch to open the hatch and stepped back out again. Williams took his place in the cockpit, rolling her still-aching shoulder as she did. The hatch closed again, and the shuttle began to lift off as Alenko jogged across the parking area to the ledge overlooking the trench and Chora's Den.

As the shuttle lifted off, Shepard knelt down and examined the assassin, paying special attention to the dead asari's gear. From what she could see, the suit's kinetic barriers had kept the rig entirely undamaged and had only failed to protect the sniper on right side of her face, just above where the exploding thermal clip had weakened it. A quick scan by her omni-tool told her its power cells were still intact, and even the rifle - despite some minor damage to the firing chamber from the exploding clip - was still serviceable with some very minor maintenance. More importantly, a check with the rifle's internal firmware yielded an all-too-familiar logo, and the much expected compatibility notice with Armax Arsenal's proprietary fire control software... "Acceptable."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well, Fist _does_ have a couple of Krogan body guards with him, doesn't he?"


	30. Chapter 29

**29 - Citadel: Medical Clinic**

The Silversun strip was a busy neighborhood even in the Citadel's off-hours (whenever those were) so navigating through the aerial dance of sky cars, taxis, shuttles and lorries took a combination of finesse, luck, and the ability to not give a damn whether or not someone else hit you. Shepard found the right balance between reckless imposition and collision avoidance and twisted the shuttle through overlapping lanes of flying traffic, over and under transport vehicles and even narrowly avoided colliding with a large civilian vessel with the word "Majesty" painted on the side of it in gigantic military-style lettering, managing somehow to make it to the other side of the strip in one piece. Many things on the Citadel had been shocking to her more for their familiarity than their strangeness; in that way, rush hour traffic over Tayseri Ward was the most shockingly familiar by far.

It was like driving a taxi cab in New York right after the end of a Mets game.

The medical clinic was marked with a navpoint, but it was still pretty hard to find. The shuttle displayed its position as a highlighted blip on her heads-up display. There was a cluster of tall buildings obscuring a visual, and she knew already she would have to either circle around them or descend directly down on top of the medical clinic to get there. The latter option didn't appeal to her at all; from a vertical descent, she would have no way of seeing what was beneath them until just before they hit the parking lot, and the possibility of blundering into another ambush was not a welcome one.

Besides, it would be a good excuse to spend more time flying this Kodiak. She'd flown one before, of course, many times in training at the academy and even with her old unit before they were wiped out on Akuze. The Kodiak was _fun_ to fly. It handled less like a v/tol aircraft and more like a wheeled vehicle driving around on an invisible road. It moved quickly forwards and backwards and it turned sharply, and if you had a good sense of the vertical thruster controls you could roll it into sideways motion if you really needed to. Otherwise, though, it's four mass effect field generators provided most of its lift and maneuvering power and could propel the little shuttle through eight gees of linear acceleration. Quick and responsive and fast in a straight line.

If only it had a big cannon mounted on the top of it...

"Hey Commander, did you tell anyone else we were out here?" Williams asked from the passenger compartment. She'd leaned over from her seat to poke her head into the front/cockpit section.

Shepard glanced back just long enough to meet her glance, "Anyone else like who? The Captain is the only one who should."

"I thought so. But Presley just forwarded us a call from someone asking about Chora's Den and something to do with Fist. He says it sounds like a reporter."

Shepared sighed. The press had already gotten wind of this, because, _of course_ they had. For any group of five people trusted with sensitive information, you could find at least six people willing to leak that information to the press. The best tactic, generally, was to deal with these reporters with a stone wall and a suggestion of where they could shove their headlines, and even that was usually better than they deserved...

But this was the Citadel. Alien territory, a new world of new rules and new realities. Shepard couldn't count on media relations working the same way here that they might in a place like Earth or Arcturus or any of the other human colonies. "I'll take it, then," she said, and slowed the shuttle down so she wouldn't crash while she was handling this latest annoyance.

A spinning circular icon appeared over the center console, and then a rectangular window appeared with the face of a human woman in a bright purple dress and the short cropped hair one usually expected from high school students. She looked young, vigorous, and full of ambition. Shepard instantly hated her. "Ah... hello, Commander Shepard. My name is Emily Wong. I'm an investigative journalist with Future News Network. Could I have a moment of your time?"

Shepard recognized the name before she recognized the face. Then she fully recognized the face and hated her slightly less. "I've seen a couple of your news feeds. You're an actual reporter, though? I thought you were just a presenter."

"Jesus. _Everyone_ says that... Do I really come off as... never mind... Commander, I have a proposition for you."

Shepard braced herself. "What do you need?"

"I've been hunting for evidence of corruption and organized crime on the Citadel, but there are some places I just can't go. I was hoping you could share anything you might find during your own investigation? I could make it worth your time."

So many questions popped into her mind, spinning around each other like spokes on a wheel. The most pertinent seemed to be how exactly Miss Wong even knew an investigation was under way, but on second thought that question would be a waste of time. Even if she answered it - which she probably wouldn't - it wouldn't change anything. So Shepard stuck to what seemed the most important moving forward: "What makes you think my investigation is going to uncover anything _you_ need?"

"You're an N7, Commander, specialized in hazardous environments and and pro-active threat neutralization. I've read about the incident on Akuze and your after-action reports from Torfan and Omega. You wouldn't be investigating unless it was something big. And if it's big, it's something I'd like to hear about."

"You've _got_ to have access to better sources, Emily. Why contact me?"

"I'm using every source I can find. You're the tenth person I've called in the last hour. But I've got a good feeling about this one. If anyone is going to uncover corruption here on the Citadel, it's most likely to be _you_."

Shepard considered this for a moment, dividing her attention between Wong's screen and the cockpit display. She'd finally found a clearing where she could approach the medical clinic almost from ground level, weaving in between a row of tall buildings. "So how are you planning to make it worth my time?"

"Just like you can go some places I can't go, as a journalist I can go some places you can't go. We have sources and information leaks in key places in the Citadel government. I could keep an eye out for any information that might be useful to you in the future...?"

A flash of the newsfeed from the Geth attacks danced through Shepard's mind. Future News had reported the story with what they had confirmed, but Shepard knew there were more details they hadn't run only because the information was either contradictory or unverifiable. Those little details could make all the difference in an intelligence report... "That sounds like a good deal. Organized crime, you say? If I find anything that could help you, it's yours. In exchange for that, I want you to give me any information you have about the Geth and their attacks on human colonies. Even the stuff your sources can't confirm."

"You've got it. Thank you, Commander. You won't regret this." Wong smiled, and the window closed.

"Aren't _we_ the center of attention today..." Wrex grumbled from the rear compartment.

Shepard smiled, "All the world's a stage."

"No it's not. It's an _arena_. Being the center of attention just means everyone wants to kill you."

"Almost any other day, I might have disagreed..." Shepard tapped the forward engines, slowing the shuttle as the medical clinic (or at least, the building that contained it) came into view. It was built into a small, out of the way corner of a larger building that was built like a fortress around a grove of tall trees and vines like a huge botanical courtyard. It was probably something to do with hydroponic cultivation or air recycling, but the building looked like it had either been abandoned or at least seriously neglected, the vegetation inside notwithstanding. The roof wasn't quite large enough to have any parking areas or landing platforms, but a small lot around the other side of the clinic was almost entirely empty except for a small, sleek-looking air car and a larger, blocker twin-engine V/TOL shuttle that looked like an elephant with its ears stretched out to the side.

Shepard brought the shuttle around the side of the building and spiraled down, landing near the far edge of the parking lot away from all of the other vehicles. Once grounded, Chief Williams opened up the last of Morlan's 'care packages' and started unpacking their contents to divide them up between them. "Spare shield cells for all three of us," she said, handing them out.

Wrex held up his hands in a 'no thanks' gesture and rumbled, "You can take mine. I make my own barriers."

"Take mine too," Shepard said, "I've got it covered."

Williams shrugged, put both shield belts on the seat behind her and moved on to the weapons. The machine pistols were the same as in the other containers, but the extra thermal clips - each the size of a flashlight battery - carried enough inert material for up to thirty rounds from each weapon. Williams handed these out again, and Wrex nodded his thanks, "My shotgun goes through these like crazy."

"I figured. That's a pretty big boomstick." She offered one to Shepard, who shook her head again, "Got it covered."

"All due respect, Commander, but what are you planning to do? Scare them to death?"

In answer to her question, Shepard dropped to a knee, reached down, and grabbed a knob on the back of the dead Asari sniper's hardsuit. She gave the knob one full turn, and then released it. The hardsuit shuddered and then its many panels popped and yawned open, like a humanoid flower blooming in the sunlight. Shepard scooped the corpse out of the suit, shoved it over to a corner of the shuttle, then casually took her place, sliding legs-first into the hardsuit and arranging her torso to line up with the suit's articulation points. A mental command to her omni-tool linked her neural implant into the suit's VI, provided the system with her exactly measurements, height and weight and body type. The suit shifted accordingly, parts it adjusting length and width to comfortably and safely enclose its new user. Then the suit folded in on itself, collapsing down all around her like a carnivorous plant swallowing a fly.

"You're not even gonna, like, wash it out first?"

Shepard grinned, "Battlefield improvisation."

"This isn't a battlefield."

"Tell that to Saren."

"I'll let my shotgun do the talking," Wrex grunted, then to Shepard added, "That rifle aint exactly one of your Alliance-issue pop guns. You sure you can handle it?"

Shepard set up, flexed her arms and legs, felt the hardsuit move with her. It had already adjusted to her biometric profiles and knew exactly when to help her and augment her strength and when to just go along for the ride. She leaned over as she stood, picked up the huge Widow sniper rifle, felt the weight in her arms. It was bulkier and heavier than the Mantis, with a weight balance that sat a little farther forward of the trigger and receiver. A pair of fins or prongs near the front of the barrel looked like mount points for bipods that the rifle did not actually have. But the Armax Arsenal software in the rifle was already talking to the suit's motion controllers, adjusting the motors to compensate for the rifle's weight and balance to make sure it remained stable no matter what she did. "I'll manage," She said.

"We'll see..."

Shepard hit the control and the door hinged open. Williams, now with three different shield cells and two machine pistols clipped to her belt, followed shortly behind, with Wrex bringing up the rear by a few long paces. It dawned on her only now that the three of them crossing this parking lot like this would have looked incredibly suspicious and threatening; a krogan mercenary and two heavily armed individuals probably wouldn't come to a place like this just to ask a few simple questions. On the other hand, the possibility of another assassin was not far from Shepard's mind, and anyway it was too late to err on the side of discretion...

"What's he up to?" Wrex said, stepping up behind her. He was pointing with one of his huge, meaty hands at a tall, gangly figure in heavy armor stalking forward along the outer wall of the building, a weapon drawn and his shoulder against the wall. He was picking his way towards the building's main entrance, about where the navpoint said should have been the entrance to the clinic.

Turian, Shepard thought, recognizing the silhouette. And not just any turian either. She recognized the streaky powder-blue clan markings on his face and the customized kuwashi visor on his left eye. So they'd found Garrus Vakarian after all, but the situation was complicated...

Shepard had a hunch.

With a silent gesture, she signaled Wrex and Williams to move to flanking positions near Vakarian or anyone else who might come out of the clinic. She moved to a position behind the smaller air car - probably Vakarian's - and set the rifle across the top of it to use as cover and support. She set her omni-tool to scan the interior of the building and report to her the relative positions of any device that wasn't accepting public connections; that, she knew, would be the omni-tools or the personal weapons of anyone who had come to the clinic looking for trouble.

The scan showed twelve signal sources that seemed to be clustered in four groups. Which probably meant four belligerents inside, each with a weapon and an omni-tool and maybe a kuwashi visor or some other type of targeting aid. They were likely to be shielded too, so probably these four were outfitted like light infantry or security guards.

Shepard loaded a logic arrest program and pushed it through the firewalls of all twelve devices. Half a second later, her omni-tool had the biometric profiles of the device's users, and a bright red outline appeared on the walls of the clinic showing the exact shape and position of the people inside. It looked like four men, two of which were standing close to the door, two others were near the center of the med clinic. One was holding a weapon with an out-stretched arm, moving aggressively and aiming at something Shepard couldn't see. Probably threatening someone. And the fact that he was holding the gun out at one full arm's length meant he had no real military training other than watching one too many action vids.

Shepard decided it was time to make introductions. She lined up her target designator on Vakarian, by now just short of the entrance to the clinic, and let fly with an invasion program. His shields immediately shut down, as did his visor and the power assist of his hardsuit. All of these facts occurred to him at once and he froze where he was, a quizzical look on his face. He immediately asked, and Shepard immediately heard him as the invasion program tapped the audio pickup in his visor, "Whoever this is... you got something you want to talk to me about?"

Clever one, this turian. He'd worked out exactly what the situation was in just two seconds flat. He knew it wasn't a hostile attack, because he'd been caught so completely unaware that if it was, he'd already be dead. He'd interpreted it as a delay or a distraction, and indeed that's exactly what it was. "Vakarian. I'm at your ten o'clock, right behind your car. I have flankers at your twelve and five."

He turned his head slowly, blinked, and then clicked his mandibles in a wry turian smile. "Well, well! Commander Shepard!" he was still talking in slightly hushed tones, but the excitement in his voice was palpable, "Didn't know _you_ were invited to this little party."

"Well, now you do. Four-on-four odds now. That changes the dynamic a bit."

"It does, but not in the ways you're thinking. They've got a hostage inside."

Shepard figured as much. She sent the instructions to release the lockdown on Garrus' gear. He stumbled a bit, but caught his balance and kept moving along the wall, staying quiet. "I have a precision weapon and targets acquired," said Shepard, "but I do not have eyes on the civilian. I need a better look at the interior."

"I'm trying to get around to the loading door just around the corner. I can get a better angle from there. I'll want to take out the back-ranks before we get the door guys. Get the Doctor clear that much faster."

"There are two guarding the door," Shepard said, thinking out loud, "Think it would be better to drop one of them at the first count."

"I can get him if he's close enough," Wrex said, "Just need to get him to take a step."

Williams added, "Emergency door on the right. If that side is clear, I can infiltrate from there."

"Take it. Wrex, I like your idea. Vakarian, there's an open window on the left side. You get the one closer to the hostage, I'll kill his friend."

Vakarian moved past the door now, scooted low, staying out of sight, until he was close to one of the open windows. Williams jogged off to to the side of the lot and them approached the building from an angle. By the time she got to the fire door, Shepard's invasion programs had already unlocked it and she slipped inside easily and quietly.

Wrex simply marched up to the front door with his usual swagger and lack of subtlety. He would have been easy to notice if anyone inside was actually watching the lot, and so far it didn't seem like they were.

"In position," Vakarian said, "Eyes on. The Doctor's in a sitting position... let's switch targets. Take the closer one."

"The one with the gun out?"

"Yeah, him. He's a little on the short side, so I recommend a head shot. I got the other one."

"Eyes on," Williams whispered, "Second target by the door."

Shepard scoped in and adjusted the rifle's zoom. She centered the sights at the outline of the target with his gun extended all the way out in in his action-movie threatening stance, putting the crosshairs right about where she thought his head and neck should meet. "On you, Wrex."

The krogan bounty hunter stepped right up to the front door and knocked on it three times. Inside, Shepard saw all of their heads swivel around towards the sound, and the one with the gun moved like he was saying something. She heard over Williams' audio a male voice saying "That him? Go see who that is." And the thug closest to the door stepped over to open it.

"Three..." Wrex drew his right hand back, palm out, as if he was about to throw an open-hand punch.

Shepard sighted on her target again. He'd turned his attention back to the doctor, said something about "If you make so much as a sound..."

"Two..." Wrex shifted his weight and took a small step forward, planting his feet. His hand curled into a fist, and a luminous blue aurora began to swirl around his forearm.

Shepard put her finger on the trigger and began to squeeze, letting the pressure build, gently bringing the weapon past its trigger point. Vakarian rose to fill the window now, aimed down the sights of his pistol and did the same.

"One!" Wrex said, and then surged forward and punched the door.

Shepard heard a woman's voice say, "That might be one of my pa-"

Vakarian's pistol fired; a hypersonic dart the size of a baby's pinky finger tore through the throat of thug number one.

Shepard's rifle fired; a fist-sized hole was suddenly punched cleanly through the entire building from one side to the other, and within the direct line indicated by that hole, the skull of thug number two exploded like a water balloon.

Williams, who had already leaned out of a doorway at the one count, aimed two machinepistols, one in each hand, and gently pulsed the triggers; over a dozen rounds sliced through thug number three, most of them catching him through the middle of his torso and shredding his heart, lungs, intestines and spinal cord.

Wrex's fist, churning with biotic energy, struck the door hard enough to knock the entire metal panel completely off its hinges; it slammed into thug number four moving faster than a runaway truck, instantly shattered very bone on the right side of his body and crushed his brain into a flat pile of meat the size and shape of a hamburger patty.

"-tients," finished the sentence on Williams' channel, followed by a startled gasp as the speaker's brain registered that something violent had just happened to the room but not being entirely sure what it was. Panic set in, and the would-be hostage scrambled and ducked behind a desk three seconds too late for it to have done her any good.

 _A hand grenade_ would have been less sudden. Possibly, even less destructive.

"Clear," Williams said.

"Clear," Vakarian echoed.

"Translucent but satisfying," Wrex growled.

"I _like_ this gun!" Shepard said, and left her perch behind Vakarian's car to join the other inside.

The woman was still cowering behind the desk when Shepard arrived, but had collected enough of her wits to at least peak out from behind it. Seeing that the four people in the room were not the same four people who had just been brutally and inexplicably killed in front of her, she seemed to relax and stood up a bit, "Garrus... did you do that? What did you do? What _was_ that?"

"That was more fun than I've had all week," Wrex said, a big toothy krogan grin.

"Way better than I could have hoped for," Vakarian agreed, "Nice setup, Shepard... Doctor Michel, are you hurt?"

Shepard knelt down next to the doctor, tapped the switch to put the rifle back into storage mode and then clipped it to the hard point on her back. The woman, wearing a white lab coat with the nametag "Dr. Chloe Michel" on the front of it, came up to her knees and caught her breath. "No... I'm okay... thanks to all of you, I guess." She rose all the way up to her feet and sat down on the top of the desk, surveying the chaos around her. Her brain still struggled to make sense of what had happened; it had literally happened in the space between heartbeats, like some kind of hyper-violent magic trick. She shuddered and tried not to think about it.

"Why were those men threatening you?" Shepard asked, "Who do they work for?"

Doctor Michel swallowed, "They work... they _worked_ for Fist. They wanted to shut me up, keep me from telling Garrus about the quarian."

Vakarian grunted, "Wrex here already gave me the basics. I was hoping you could provide some details..."

"I'll tell you what I know. A few days ago, a quarian girl stumbled into my office. She'd been shot, but wouldn't tell me who did it. I could tell she was scared, probably on the run. She asked me about the Shadow Broker. She wanted to sell information in exchange for a safe place to hide."

Shepard nodded, "And so you put her in contact with Fist."

Doctor Michel nodded, "He's an agent for the Shadow Broker. He's also in a good position to keep her safe if she's in trouble."

"Not anymore," Vakarian said, "He's with Saren now."

"Yeah, and the Shadow Broker aint too happy about that," Wrex added, a small touch of menace in his voice.

"Fist betrayed the Shadow Broker?" Michel sat up straighter, marveling at this, "That's stupid. Even for _him_. Saren must have made him quite the offer."

Shepard nodded again. It clicked into place in her mind like a piece of a vast and complex puzzle that was finally taking shape: Doctor Michel's testimony would go a long way in front of the Council. "Anything else you can tell me about the quarian? Do you know what kind of information she had?"

"She wouldn't give me details. I just know it had something to do with the attack on Eden Prime."

"She must have something that can connect him to the Geth attack," Vakarian said, his eyes going wide, "And Saren's trying to kill her to keep it from getting out? Must be something big."

Shepard stood up, brushed the dust off her knee pads, "Have you seen the quarian since then or know where she is now?"

"Not since I sent her over to Fist yesterday. As far as I know, she's still with him."

"She hasn't left since I've been staking the place out," Vakarian said.

"Same for me," Wrex said, "I'm guessing she's still in there. Probably waiting for the deal to go through. You realize, of course, that Fist probably killed her _hours_ ago."

"Possibly. But knowing Fist, he probably saved a copy of her data as insurance in case Saren decided to get rid of him."

Williams sighed, "I don't know... if he was stupid enough to trust Saren in the first place..."

"Only one way to find out," Shepard said, "Doctor Michel, I don't think Fist will take another shot at you, but all the same I think you should go to C-Sec with Vakarian where you'll be safer..."

"Shepard," Vakarian stepped back, "I've been building this case for months. I put my ass on the line for this. I wanna bring down Saren as badly as you do. That guy's a traitor to the Council and a disgrace to turians everywhere!"

"So, what? You wanna come along?"

"I do too," Doctor Michel said, "That quarian girl could be injured. I might be able to help out."

Shepard shrugged, "It's not gonna be pretty. We're also going to be more than a little outgunned going into this."

"Well..." Vakarian looked around the room for a moment, then reached down and turned over one of the dead thugs. It was the one he had shot in the throat through the window; the bullet had nicked a piece of his brainstem on the way out and his heart had stopped so suddenly that he hadn't even had time to bleed out. He was wearing civilian clothes, just an activewear t-shirt and a pair of slacks, but he also wore a shoulder harness with a magnetic hard point on the back of it. Shepard hadn't seen a weapon there because it had been inactive in its stowed position, but as Vakarian plucked the weapon from its hardpoint, it unfolded in his hand and expanded to almost there times its stored size.

Shepard didn't recognize the design. It was flatter and blockier than the Avenger and much simpler-looking than the Phaeston rifles used by the turian military. She'd seen something like it carried by Batarian pirates and merc bands in the traverse, but never in detail, and never this close. "Vindicator," Vakarian said, bobbing his head to the side, "Battle rifles, these... how the hell is Fist getting these things onto the Citadel?"

Williams flipped over another body - this one spattered with blood and gore and missing its entire head - and pulled the rifle off his back as well. "When we get back to his club, you can ask him yourself."


	31. Chapter 30

**30 - Citadel: Save the Quarian**

Lieutenant Alenko didn't even turn away from his binoculars when Commander Shepard knelt down next to him and unfolded her rifle. She might have mistaken his lack of reaction for inattention until he said softly without turning his head, "Had some activity just before you landed. Two groups of armed men crossed the bridge, and then the bar patrons started leaving in a hurry."

Shepard parked her rifle on the edge of the wall and then looked down at the pedway through the scope. There was indeed a disorganizd tangle of customers streaming out of the place, many of them too drunk to cross the pedway gracefully but somehow not toasted enough to fall over the side. She looked next towards the hollow in the trench wall and the landing that was the front entry area of Chora's Den. More people were starting to come out in a close knot of bodies, this time a cluster of blue asari dancers in various states of undress. "They're kicking the employees out too."

"Yeah. And the guys inside have been moving tables and chairs around. I think Fist is barricading himself inside. One of the krogan bounty hunters left on a shuttle about two minutes ago."

Shepard had landed their shuttle almost a hundred meters back from the ledge to make sure nobody interested would notice their arrival. She'd also made sure to sweep the area for any surveillance devices or security systems Fist might have set up. She'd found none, but the scans took some time that she wasn't sure they really had. She didn't regret being cautious, at least not yet. "Let's go loud," she said, opening her omni-tool at the same time, "We'll run this one in phalanx. Wrex and Kaiden, you're the shield. Garrus, Ash, get the spears. I'm your archer."

"Got it," said Alenko.

"Affirmative, ma'am," said Williams, loading a fresh thermal clip into her stolen battle rifle.

"What the fuck did _any_ of that mean?" Wrex growled, coming up behind them.

Alenko smiled, "It means we hold the barriers while they shoot."

"Well quads, why didn't you just say that in the first place?" Wrex checked the ammo count on his own shotgun, then grimaced as he realized he had done this four times since the last time he even fired it. "Shepard, you're staying up here? I thought you'd be _leading_ this little party."

"I _am_ leading it. And I'm gonna need a link to your hardsuit and your omni-tools, all of you. Not that I need to ask, because none of you could really stop me if I wanted it."

Garrus snorted and tapped a command on his omni-tool to open access to Shepard. Wrex did the same with a huff. Alenko and Williams did nothing, because they both assumed - correctly - that Shepard had already gotten access to their equipment hours ago.

"Keep your ears open and keep track of your directions," Shepard said, "The pedway is your zero and I'm your six. I'll call em as I see em. Keep your heads on a swivel."

Wrex clacked his fists together in front of his waist, then started towards the keeper tunnel like a main battle tank on the move. Williams followed close behind and both of them vanished below. Garrus, meanwhile, headed off in a different direction with Alenko on his tail. A few moments later he also disappeared, this time down a different set of keeper tunnels that linked to the alternate (it turned out, far more popular) route.

Shepard put her attention back on her rifle scope and watched the scene a while longer. The last few asari dancers were just now leaving the place, and a par of turians in black and red heavy armor were starting to place a row of T-shaped rails on the front of the bar just in front of the landing. A salarian came out next, dragging a pair of high voltage power cables behind him. Cables that thick would hook up to a megawatt-scale generator, which meant somebody was about to put a lot of power into...

Oh hell. "Got a development. Fists' thugs are setting up kinetic barriers."

"That's not good," Vakarian said, "They get those barriers up, we'll need a _platoon_ to get in there."

"I'll handle it, but you're gonna have to be ready quickly. Stand by for actuals..." She picked out one target in particular - the salarian with the cables, because why not? - and fired a swarm of corrupted, intelligent, self-programming electronic data constructs into the void. The swarm found its first target, then found his neighbors. Both of the turians suddenly jumped as if something had pinched them and the salarian dropped the cables and turned all the way around as if confused by something. Right now, any implants or data systems they might have had were throwing up random error messages and junk data to keep them distracted from the fact that every other device connected to their personal networks was being aggressively infiltrated by an army of malware.

As with the thugs in the medical clinic, Shepard was able to get their biometric profiles and project a red outline where their bodies should be. Unlike the clinic, she also projected this data to the rest of her team, and now all five of her allies could see all nineteen of their targets outlined, even the ones on the other side of the wall.

Wrex whistled in amazement. "Damn, Shepard. That's a good trick!"

"Aint seen nothing yet." She lined up her sights on her first target. The salarian was picking the cables up and moving with a renewed urgency. The turians were still standing around, looking annoyed and slightly uneasy, but clearly had no idea how much trouble they were in. The salarian didn't know either, but he at least had the good sense to be scared, and that meant he would be Shepard's first kill. "You guys in position?"

"Made it to the pedway," Alenko said, "Ready when you are."

Vakarian added, "Let's go already! Give the signal or something!"

"Signal... right... hey, you see that salarian over there?"

"Yeah? What about him?"

Shepard squeezed the trigger.

A huge splattered pool of green blood suddenly appeared behind the salarian; he flipped backwards, landing on his head with enough force to shatter his neck, and tumbled into that blood splatter as limp as a rag.

Wrex gave off a huge, primal, gutteral scream that sounded like a mashup of murderous rage and orgasm. A second later he was sprinting across the pedway, screaming obscenities and firing his shotgun at Fists' thugs. He moved terrifyingly fast for something so bulky, made all the more terrifying once the two startled turians began firing at him from their assault rifles and saw their bullets flatten on off his barriers like bugs on a windshield.

They might as well have been shooting at an avalanche.

Wrex hit the two turians with the force of a runaway truck; a wave of his arm sent one of them spinning out over the trench, his neck bent backwards at at impossible angle. The other turian leapt back and reached for his weapon. Wrex swung his fist in an exaggerated back-hand, and the turian's midsection exploded like a fleshy piñata.

Shepard almost flinched. _How the hell did he do that?_ She didn't have time to wonder; her invasion program showed her a flurry of movement as several of the thugs inside the bar started ducking down behind tables and chairs, getting themselves some cover. Three of them rushed for the open front door, all three carrying heavy shotguns that were probably loaded with carnage grenades.

Shepard got up from her perch, ran along the wall until she was over the pedway, and jumped.

A burst of gunfire from Vakarian and Williams immediately swept two of Fists' thugs off their feet. The third steadied himself and fired anyway: a bright red flare streaked straight towards Wrex, bounced off his barrier, and exploded over his head like a fire cracker.

Shepard landed on the pedway hard enough to shatter both of her legs if not for the power assist of the suit she was wearing. She shook off the impact and raised her rifle again, sighted on the third shotgunner, the outline of him shining through the den's translucent wall. "Sighted," she said, and then shot him in the chest. The projectile knocked him head-over-heels and sent him careening sideways back into the doorway he'd already come through. "Two," said Shepard.

Wrex, still in the throws of his berserker fit or whatever it was, howled like an animal and then pumped his feat, moving towards the door. Alenko was just now reaching the end of the pedway with Vakarian right behind him; Williams moved over and joined them so they were flanking him from both sides.

"Wrex is going right," Shepard announced as the krogan barreled directly into a line of improvised barricades and sent the men behind them flailing in a half dozen random directions, "I'll cover _him_. Garrus, Ash, take left, Kaiden on point."

Alenko sprinted towards the door, following Wrex's trail of destruction, and then broke left. A surge of gunfire immediately flew at him from all sides; he extended his barrier, and the bullets twisted away, striking the walls and the floor around him. Williams fired back, sweeping a pair of turians on the top of the circular stage. Garrus moved in farther and hugged the wall, firing around the bend at a group of thugs using a table as cover. They'd reinforced the table with a steel plate, which meant, Alenko realized, they were now standing in a kill zone...

"Ash, ten o'clock, twelve meters." Shepard's voice crackled in their ears.

Williams aimed her rifle in that direction before she even saw the target, and therefore nearly had her shot lined up when one of Fists' thugs popped out from behind cover and aimed his weapon. Two short bursts stripped away the thug's kinetic barrier and the third hit him square in the chest, knocking him back and denting his armor. He stumbled backwards in fear and panic, leaving two comrades behind the same table suddenly exposed.

"Wrex. Four 'clock, two meters."

The raging krogan reacted on instinct, pivoting on one foot and swinging the barrel of his shotgun around as a turian who was charging towards him with his omni-tool formed into a stabbing blade. The shotgun boomed once, and the turian's body disappeared above the ribcage, armor and all.

Wrex turned back around as two krogan bodyguards vaulted over a table and tried to charge him. He aimed his shotgun at one, blasted him backwards over the table he'd just hurdled; the other had managed to get just about within punching distance when a loud metalic _crack_ split the room, like the sound of someone pounding on a steel plate with a sledgehammer, and suddenly the krogan was on his side, sliding across the floor on a smear of blood as if he'd just been crushed under the foot of an invisible giant.

"Three," said Shepard, as Wrex jumped over the table and landed both feet directly on the skull of the krogan he'd blasted over the table. The landing was crunchier than he expected, and also far more satisfying.

Farther around the room, a salarian with a machine pistol climbed on top of the bar to try and get out of Wrex's reach... and then was slammed hard sideways, crashing against the bar, as one side of his chest exploded.

"Four," said Shepard, "Ash, Garrus, eleven o'clock, ten meters."

"We got 'em," Garrus said, the words becoming almost an afterthought. Two of the tugs dropped at the feet of Williams and Vakarian, the results of a failed attempt to charge through their combined assault rifle fire. The remaining thug on their side of the bar stood up and ran from the table, dashing back through the rounded club towards Fists' offices. Williams and Vakarian ducked behind the same table he'd just abandoned and fired, lighting up his shields all along his back and shoulders. A handful of men deeper into the bar fired back, mostly with pistols and machine-pistols, but at least one with a shotgun. Alenko ducked down behind them, took the opportunity to cool down and catch his breath.

"Wrex, eleven o'clock, six meters. He's a biotic..."

Wrex reacted without answering: he reached out his hand, and a mass effect field reached out with him; the field brought the salarian to such a sudden stop that for a moment he was almost statue-still, until another metallic crack sang through the room, and suddenly the salarian's lower abadomen leapt out of his armor and sprayed its contents against the far wall. Wrex released his hold, and he flopped to the ground like a dropped chew toy as Shepard announced, "Five."

They could all perfectly see the outlines of the defenders even through cover; Williams kept her head down out of sight and carefully watched them through the solid surface of the table. A the sounds of of insane violence - gunfire, the smashing of tables, the wet crunching sounds of bones being broken - raged through the room from the other side of the center column. One of the thugs took a moment to look in that direction, wondering if his comrades had this under control...

 _Crack!_ His head disappeared, the wall behind him suddenly dark red and slimy.

"Six."

The man next to the fresh corpse screamed and panicked. Williams saw him start to rise, and immediately popped up, barely needing to aim, and put a burst from her assault rifle across the kid's collar bones. His shields held off most of the burst, but one round got through and chipped off a piece of his armor as he ducked back down. Another red outline showed her where one of his comrades was still ducking down under cover behind the barrier; she started to advance towards him, but another metallic _crack_ accompanied the sudden appearance of a five-centimeter hole in the table top and the sudden _dis_ appearance of the thug's left arm just below the shoulder.

"Seven."

"Shit!" Wrex was growling on the comm channel. His voice sounded strained, like he had been carrying a heavy load for far too long, "Barriers... going..."

"We're coming around to you, Wrex," Vakarian said, "Commander?"

"I've got him..." Alenko had vaulted over the table and started advancing when yet another loud metallic crack filled the room.

"That's eight," Shepard announced, then a short delay, and another crack, "And nine."

The thugs on the left side of the round were firing and falling back. Willians and Vakarian fired back, driving them into the cover of the broad doorway leading to Fists' office. Williams circled around and past it, so that in this instant, a group of about a half dozen armed thugs were caught between a krogan with a shotgun and a marine with a bad attitude, all while some unseen someone was picking them off one by one if they remained still for more than a few seconds at a time. Wrex paused, planted his feet, reached out with his open palm towards the defenders in the hallway, and then yanked as if he was pulling on an invisible rope.

The table they were using as cover suddenly flew away from them, leaving them out in the open, exposed and, it seemed, a little embarrassed.

Four sets of weapons thundered into the doorway and a storm of bullets tore the two nearest ones down, smeared their insides against the crates behind them. At almost the same instant, a large hulking form - a krogan in heavy body armor - stepped out from behind that same crate with a Revenant light machinegun already raised and aimed...

 _Crack!_

The top of the krogan's head suddenly cratered, the protruding natural helmet of bone and cartilege transforming into a funnel. The krogan dropped to his knees, burbled something that might have been a complaint, and then fell on his face.

"Ten."

The three remaining bodyguards saw this, started to panic, and made just the beginnings of an attempt to flee when a loud _boom!_ from Wrex's shotgun slammed one of them against the office door as a smoking corpse. Williams raked one with three short bursts, spinning him to the ground. Vakarian aimed lower, catching the last one right across his knee caps; he screamed briefly in pain and started to fall, but didn't quite make it to the ground before Wrex's foot came down on his neck with a loud, sickening crunch.

Alenko saw a red outline shift somewhere, as if the person the outline belonged to was invisible. He realized too late that he was seeing someone on the other side of a wall, and then the side door from the "Staff Only" hallway snapped open and an asari wearing an Ariake hardsuit rushed out of it, Widow sniper rifle in hand.

From five meters away, Alenko snapped a biotic field down around her arms and snatched the rifle right out of her hands. Her expression was one of surprise, then amusement, and then determination as she raised both of her hands in front of her to form a solid biotic barrier. Half a second later, a final metallic crack sounded through the room; she staggered back as her barrier shuddered in a violent rippling wave, and the door behind her suddenly had a five centimeter hole in it. "Fist," she gasped into a comm link that none of them could see, "Fist, you asshole! I need help!"

Alenko wrapped a power field around his right arm and then pushed it against her barrier as hard as he could. Wrex did the same at that exact moment from a slightly different angle. The two converging biotic fields compressed her barrier smaller and smaller, squeezing a shimmering energy field the size of a beach umbrella down to a more distorted one the size of a dinner plate.

She gave one last defiant snarl as the tortured remnant of her barrier collapsed. Then the snarl collapsed into a wet choking sound at the same moment her chest, neck and lower jaw collapsed into her sternum. Her dying body hit the door with so much force that the metal dimpled half a meter inwards, fusing her harsuit to it and leaving her twitching in a shallow, horizontal grave...

 _Boom!_

Both the door and the front of her hardsuit exploded and she collapsed in the doorway, straight down like puppet with its strings cut.

"Eleven," said Shepard, who was now standing on top of the bar just a few meters away.

Wrex snorted, "Aw, bullshit. You don't get to claim that one."

"I had the kill shot! Finisher credit!"

"She was as good as dead, Commander," Alenko grumbled.

"I still had vitals."

Williams stepped past the corpse, rifle drawn, towards the door to Fists' office area. "I did too."

Wrex clicked his tongue, "Don't encourage her..."

"You get finisher credit," Vakarian said, joining Williams by the door, "But the _mission kill_ goes to Wrex and Kaiden."

"Mission kill?" Alenko nodded in approval, "Yeah, he's right."

"I'm taking that kill," said Shepard, and suddenly her voice was no longer on comms and was instead coming from behind them as she stepped over the pile of bodies her team had generated on the way in, "That's an order."

Wrex snorted again, "Shepard, I don't even work for you. Fuck your orders."

"But you _are_ a mercenary..."

"... that you didn't hire. Remember?"

Williams chuckled, "Check and _mate_."

"Fine," Shepard growled, then tapped her omni-tool and started to access the door's controls remotely, "You get the kill."

"There were alot more guys in here than I expected," Alenko said, "Bet you anything alot of these gunmen were posing as customers."

The door was locked from the inside, which to Shepard suggested somebody was left alive back there to lock it. Probably Fist, but she took a step back as she forced the lock to release, just in case.

Two humans in beige jumpsuits were standing there, both with pistols in their hands. Neither of the guns were raised or ready, and the men seemed utterly astounded that the door had opened despite their having pushed the "lock" button just a few seconds prior. One of them stared at that lock button with a look of shock and betrayal, the other raised his pistol halfway and took a step back, trying and completely failing to look threatening. "S-Stop right there! All of you!"

Alenko looked them over exactly once and then sighed, "Bus boys. All the bodyguards must be dead..."

"You stay back or we'll shoot!" said the other one, who still hadn't raised his weapon. He didn't even seem to remember that it was still in his hand.

Shepard glanced back at the still-smoldering club and the pile of bodies littering the floor, then at the two bus boys trying to threaten her. "I just killed, like, fifty guys to get in here..."

The one with the pistol stared at her, and his eyes seemed to say _That's not my problem_. Then he looked past her at the carnage outside and his expression changed to a worried _That is definitely a problem._

"... so, how about you two go find yourselves a different job where you're less likely to be killed by special forces commandos?"

The two of them thought it over for all of two seconds, then both of them dropped their guns, lowered their gazes and walked away muttering to themselves, "Yeah. Right. Good idea."

Williams watched them go, then picked up their pistols and folded them down to their storage configurations. "I can't believe that worked."

Shepard shrugged, "Violence is not always the answer."

Wrex snorted, "Then you're asking the wrong questions!"

The little hallway doubled as a store room of sorts. Small and large sealed crates were scattered around the room. Most of them were labeled as bulk food product or alcohol, but Shepard's omni-tool couldn't scan deeper to see what was really inside. "I bet these are how Fist was smuggling those weapons," she said, and clicked the latches on one of the cases before flipping the lid off.

The box was filled with a sound-damping storage rack and twenty M-15 Vindicator battle rifles.

Vakarian muttered something in palavi that Shepard's translator somehow rendered as _Yup_.

Two other doors were set into this hallway, but only one of them was locked. Shepard pushed an invasion program through the security network, forced open the lock, and again took a step back in case Fist decided not to come quietly.

The concussion grenade missed her shoulder by just two centimeters before zipping past her and exploding against the wall behind them. A burst of gunfire followed it, pelting the wall in a ragged cluster all around the new crater left by the grenade.

"Stay back!" shouted someone in the office, "I'll kill it! I'll fucking kill it, I swear!"

"What the hell are you doing?!" Shouted someone else. A woman's voice, slight electronic augmentation like it was coming out of a speaker.

"Found Fist," Wrex said, then leaned into the opening and fired one blast from his shotgun.

A man inside the room screamed in surprise and fired back. A deafening clatter of gunfire echoed through the confined space.

Wrex leaned against the doorway, amusement in his eyes. "Guess who he's using as a hostage?"

"The quarian's still alive?" Shepard asked, "Why hasn't he kill her yet?"

"Hell if I know..."

"Fist!" the woman - evidently the quarian - was screaming now, "You bosh'tet! Let me go!"

Fist ignored her. "You people want the quarian, right? Let's make a deal! I'll hand her over along with her data, and you let me walk out of here!"

Shepard flattened herself against the door frame opposite Wrex while the others hung back, out of the line of fire. She poked her head just far enough and just long enough to get a glimpse of the interior and flash-recorded it in her personal view. Fist was in the center of the room, a large mahogany desk tilted on its side in the middle of the room like a barricade. He was wearing an incredibly bulky powered suit, with one hand wrapped around the neck of a slender female in a quarian exosuit, the other aiming a Vindicator battle rifle over her shoulder. He was literally using her like a human shield, holding her neck like a handle. The power assist in the suit probably afforded him a vicelike grip on her neck that the quarian was in no hurry to challenge lest he damage the suit she was wearing.

Shepard leaned into the doorway again, and when Fist didn't fire at her exposed head added, "I am in no mood for games, Fist. Hand over the quarian and I won't have to shoot your balls off."

"I'll hand her over when I'm safe! That's the deal! We _both_ know that Eden Prime data is more important to you than killing me!"

Shepard growled. "The deal is this," Slowly, Shepard stepped fully into the doorway and, just as slowly, raised the rifle until the crosshair was centered on the exposed part of Fists' ear. As she expected, the fire control system was having trouble keeping a target - it couldn't tell the two figures apart clearly enough - so Shepard went manual and kept the rifle centered herself. "You've got until the count of three to release her before I kill both of you and _take_ the data." And then she fired off an invasion program at the Quarian, letting the malicious software worm its way into her hardsuit. She watched the quarian squirm as she realized what was happening, heard her murmur of complaint. It was probably a more intimate violation for her than it would have been for anyone else, but Shepard didn't have time to apologize.

"What are you talking about? The data's encrypted! If she dies you get _nothing_!"

"One!"

Fist shouted, "Are you kidding me?!"

"Two!" Shepard's finger tightened on the trigger. At the same time, a light green outline appeared around the Quarian's suit, the program telling her she now had control of it.

"Wait! Wait a minute!"

"Three!"

" _Wait_! I don't have a..." Fist's words died as a high-voltage electric shock surged through his arm and grounded itself through his boots. The charge from the Quarian's exo-suit first overloaded his armor's power-assist, then drained the energy into its own capacitors. His motorized gauntlet went slack, and the Quarian girl pulled free, diving for the far wall.

Shepard squeezed the trigger. A kinetic barrier flashed in the path of the bullet and then exploded, as did a chunk of the armor underneath it. Fist launched backwards and fell against the sofa on the wall behind him, wheezing and groaning in pain but still, somehow, alive.

Then he looked up and saw six heavily armed individuals standing over him: three humans, a krogan, and a turian. None of them he recognized, which at the moment was a source of relief only because it meant that none of these people were working for Saren.

Relief turned back to anxiety, however, when the Quarian girl stood up from her corner of the room, now carrying the assault rifle he had only moments ago dropped, and aimed it directly at his head. "Kia'took! You set me up, you son of a varren! I _knew_ I shouldn't have trusted you!"

"Don't worry about him," Shepard said, "He'll get what's coming to him. Are you alright?"

She lowered the rifle, set it down at the floor at her feet. "You hacked my suit. Not many people can do that."

"Would've taken too long to explain what I wanted you to do. Plus, I wasn't sure you had the defensive software I needed."

"You reprogrammed my suit to drain his energy?"

"Standard self-defense protocol. You can keep that, by the way."

The quarian's glowing eyes seemed to smile. "Then I guess that's _two_ things I should thank you for. Who are you, anyway?"

"Lieutenant Commander Shepard, Alliance Navy. I'm looking for evidence of Saren's involvement with the Eden Prime attack."

"If it's evidence you want, you've come to the right place. I'll have a chance to repay you for saving me."

Shepard nodded. "Acceptable. Garrus, Williams, get her to the shuttle. Watch your corners, there might be more of them."

"You got it. Ma'am?" Garrus gestured for the quarian to follow, and she almost jogged out of the room ahead of him.

"Shepard," Wrex grumbled, tapping his shotgun against the armor plate on his thigh, "We done here?"

Shepard nodded, "We've got what we came for. Although I w-"

Wrex barely moved his arm, the tiniest shift of his shoulder, and then his shotgun let off a blast that splattered a thick puree of Fists' skull across the floor of his office. The body twitched and went still, and Wrex folded up the shotgun, stowed it on the back of his armor and said, "Sorry. Were you saying something?"

Shepard took a deep, frustrated breath, "Although, I _would_ like to get the combination of that wall safe over there," she pointed at a corner of the room, close to where her rifle shot had deflected off his armor and barriers and cratered into the wall.

"Oh. Hell, you don't need a combination for that." Wrex knelt down and dug through some of the detritus scattered around the floor, looking for something, while Alenko brought up his radio and called Doctor Michel to bring the shuttle around. He made a satisfied sound as he found what he was looking for: a coffee mug with a pinyin character painted on the side of it that Shepard's implant couldn't translate for some reason.

Wrex held the cup in his hand, and then spread his fingers and released it. The cup rose into the air, and began to glow softly. "Stand back," he said, squinted at the safe, and then took a small step to his right. And then another small step, lining up the angle just right. Then he turned his hand over so it was behind the cup, took a deep breath, and gave it a push.

The sound was even louder than Wrex's shotgun, not just because of the coffee cup breaking the sound barrier by at least a full mach number, but because the energy of the cup hitting the side of the safe had enough kinetic energy to melt steel. If it had been a better designed safe, it might have actually survived that impact and fused itself shut for security purposes. But it was a _human_ designed safe, designed by people who knew nothing about biotics or the way an object enhanced by a mass effect field can deliver kinetic energy even after initial impact. So the safe burst open with a shower of sparks like a firecracker going off, and now there was a six-inch jagged gash in the front of it.

"Michel's coming around with the shuttle," Alenko said. Then asked, "Wrex, where'd you learn to do that?"

"What? They don't teach you human biotics how to _throw_?"

"Offensive biotics is still just theoretical. We mostly do barriers and force multipliers."

"Oh brother... We're gonna have to fix that, little pyjak!" Wrex reached into the burst-open safe and ripped what was left of the door off its frame. He reached inside, pulled out a smaller metal box that locked with a simple latch and no key, and handed it to Shepard. She opened it with one hand, glanced inside, and then closed it with a smile. "File cabinet."

"Wonder what's on it?" Alenko asked.

"Do you?" Shepard closed the box and lobbed it to him. Alenko caught it and was already frowning before Shepard said, " _You_ get to sort through 'em then."

"I had to open my big mouth..." his omni-tool beeped and he announced, "Shuttle's here. Time to go."

Shepard nodded, "Alright, we're done here. Let's get back to the Embassy before C-Sec shows up."


	32. Chapter 31

**31 - Citadel: Compelling Evidence**

"You're not making my life easy, Shepard," Ambassador Udina said as Shepard walked in, "Firefights in the wards, an all-out assault on Chora's Den... do you know how man-" he trailed off as Garrus and Williams came into the room, their quarian visitor entering just behind them, along with Wrex and Alenko bringing up the rear. Too many new faces to process at once, and not being sure where to start, he started everywhere. "Who are these people? What are you up to, Shepard?"

"This quarian," Shepard said as the doors closed behind them, "Can help us bring down Saren. I would have told you that if you hadn't started bitching as soon as I came through the door."

"I... apologize, Commander. This whole thing with Saren has me a bit on edge... maybe we should start at the beginning. Miss...?"

"My name is Tali'Zorah," said the quarian, "Tali'Zorah nar Raya, of the one hundred and forty fifth Flotilla"

"We don't see many quarians on the Citadel," Udina said, "Why did you leave the Flotilla?"

"I was on my pilgrimage. My rite of passage into adulthood."

"Pilgrimage?" Shepard asked, "Pilgrimage to where?"

"It's nothing that specific... It's a tradition among quarians. When we reach maturity, we leave the ships of our parents and our people behind. Alone we search the stars, only returning to the Flotilla once we have discovered something of value. In this way, we prove ourselves worthy of adulthood."

"What kinds of things do you look for?" Udina asked.

"Depends. It could be resources like food or fuel, or some kind of useful technology. Or even knowledge that would make life easier on the flotilla. Through our Pilgrimage we prove that we can contribute to the community, rather than be a burden on our limited resources."

Context established, Shepard nodded. With a gesture offering her a seat at the Ambassador's desk, she asked gently, "Tell the Ambassador what you found."

"Well, I was on my way back to the Terminus Systems and I got sidetracked on Eden Prime. I was trying to book passage off the planet when the Geth battleship attacked Constant."

Captain Anderson asked, "You were at Constant during the attack?"

"No, I was at First Landing across the valley from there. I went into the battle zone looking for information I could sell to the Shadow Broker. Maybe make some money to help pay for transport. I hadn't imagined the Geth would have been behind the attack, though."

"Why not?" Udina asked, "I understand your people were the ones who created the Geth in the first place."

"Yes, but ever since they drove us into exile, the Geth have never traveled beyond the Veil. They didn't even follow us after the Morning War. They've been isolationists for centuries. But at Eden Prime, I was able to get close-range scans of them for the first time. I got information about the different unit types, their tactics, weapons, deployments, even about their signals architecture. I was also curious about their flagship... information about Geth bodies would be important to militaries like yours, but when it comes to their ships, that information could be valuable to the Flotilla. I sent one of my drones to get closer to their landing site, hoping to get close-range data on their propulsion systems," Tali'Zorah opened her omni-tool and started typing a command onto her keyboard, "and that's when I recorded this."

The omni-tool projected a video window in the air between them and high-resolution image solidified into streaming video from the point of view of one well-hidden quarian drone.

"How did this happen, Commander?" asked the tall Asari woman in dark grey robes, "How did we lose to these _humans_?"

"Lose?" Saren Arturius wheeled on her, anger and betrayal on his expression, "We haven't lost, Benezia! This is a major victory! This beacon will bring us one step closer to finding the Conduit!"

"And the return of the Reapers?" asked the Asari, sounding frightened.

"And _salvation_!" gasped Saren, and stormed off towards what the camera image now showed was the yet-to-be-activated Prothean beacon.

"That turian," Tali'Zorah went on, "that was the second time I saw him that day. He seemed important enough that I collected biometric and cybermetric data on him. I didn't know who he was at the time, as I didn't have any reference data to compare the samples to. The first time I saw him, when I collected that data originally, was here," And she tapped another command on her omni-tool, this time displaying a video window from a much closer and better concealed position.

The video began with the sound of automatic gunfire, and the shifting of the camera angle as the drone tried to locate the source. Chitika's feed eventually centered on four Geth troopers as they were gunned down, one by one, by short, focussed bursts, spilling fluid from their innards. A concussion grenade slammed into a fifth one, shattering it. Then the image became a jumble of disjointed shapes and movement as Chitika moved to get out of sight.

A few moments passed, showing more flashes of violence, more sounds of gunfire. Tali'Zorah remembered that she was trying to find out exactly who was shooting down the Geth troopers and was increasingly amazed at how precise and efficient the mystery gunman was.

Eventually, she found him: a fast-moving, predatory-looking figure vaulting over fallen Geth bodies carrying a Phaeston assault rifle in one arm and a Salarian grenade pistol on his thigh.

"Nihlus," said Anderson, a note of dread in his voice.

The video window paused for a moment as Tali'Zorah opened a second window next to it, this one showing the biometric data she'd collected. "This is the comparison from Sergeant Vakarian," she said, "It's a positive match for Spectre Nihlus." The video feed resumed now, with Nihlus leaping up the stairs to the terminal's main entrance, leading with his rifle and watching for threats. At the top of the stairs, he stopped and lowered his rifle as a look of surprise came over his face. His surprise was captured in one word: "Saren?"

Chitika's video feed shifted over, and there was Saren at the top of the landing, standing in front of the entrance to the terminal. He turned slowly, noticing Nihlus for the first time, a blank expression on his deformed face. "Nihlus," he said, almost - but not quite - warmly.

Once again, the video froze, and this time biometric data appeared for Saren. "This one's more complicated," Tali'Zorah said, "The biometric data checks out, but it looks like something's happened to Saren's body. There is evidence of extensive prosthetic reconstruction. And that's not even the weirdest part... the configuration of the prosthetics and their power signatures are very similar to the Geth constructs that attacked Eden Prime."

"It's not widely known," Udina said, "But Saren was critically injured in a combat action during the First Contact War. He's been operating with prosthetics ever since. These parts are more advanced than the last components he was fitted with, but they're still consistent with his injuries..."

"I didn't know Saren fought in the First Contact War," Anderson said, amazed, "That would explain alot... why didn't you mention that to me before?"

"I assumed you knew. You've worked with Saren before, you must have looked up his service record."

"I never had access to his service record. Didn't have the clearance. You do, as a diplomat. I'm not even sure you're allowed to share that with me."

Udina shrugged, "Well, now you know. Please continue, Tali, my apologies."

"Tali'Zorah," she corrected, and continued the video feed.

Nihlus began to relax, collapsing his rifle back to its storage mode. He still looked anxious, though, despite Saren's casual manner. It was plain to see he wasn't sure why the other spectree wasn't more alert than he was with five fresh kills just a few meters from his feet. "This isn't your mission, Saren," Nihlus said, "What are _you_ doing here?"

Saren reached up, patted Nihlus on the shoulder reassuringly as he walked past, "The Council thought you could use some help on this one."

Nihlus nodded slowly, almost full agreement. "My ship must have called for backup. Can't blame them under the circumstances."

"So they did," Saren grunted, "Especially with this..." he gestured with his hand, indicating the gigantic starship resting nearby, glowing with fierce red static around its flanks as if its internal power was only barely contained.

Nihlus looked up at that shape, the feeling of dread it inspired growing by the second. "I knew the Beacon wasn't as secret as we would have preferred, but I wasn't expecting to find the Geth here."

Saren nodded, "Have you had any luck determining their real objective?"

Nihlus stirred at this, "As opposed to what? You think they did all of this just to capture the Beacon?"

"That would seem to be the obvious conclusion. The data stored in that beacon could be invaluable to them, especially if they're attempting to expand beyond the Veil."

"But the Beacon itself is worthless to them. It can only be accessed by a biotic, and it can't communicate with synthetics. They could steal it, but they could never use it."

"Entirely true, Nihlus. But the Geth may not know that."

"Valid point." Nihlus looked up at the enormous shape towering over them again. His mandibles clicked in an expression of dread. "The situation's bad. I don't think we have a choice. We'll have to try and get a signal out and call for reinforcements."

"Agreed," Saren said, turning behind him. When he turned this time, an M77 Paladin hand cannon unfolded in his hand, and Chitika recorded the weapon's configuration and electronic serial number. This, too, came back as the personal sidearm of one Saren Aturius.

"In the mean time, we've got to get control of that beacon. We'll have the human squad meet us here and we'll advance on the beacon together." Nihlus opened his omni-tool and started programming an encrypted data link.

"Don't worry about the beacon," Saren said, and raised the weapon to the back of Nihlus' head, "I've everything under control."

Nihlus began to turn his head, a question just on the tip of his tongue at the exact moment Saren pulled the trigger. The gun fired a single blast, and a fist-sized hole punched through the opposite side of Nihlus' head.

The video window closed, and Tali'Zorah took a small step back.

"This proves it," Anderson said, clasping his hands, "The Council can't ignore evidence like this. We've got Saren by the balls now!"

"You have data on the Geth as well?" Shepard asked, "That could be useful in figuring out how to stop him."

"As a matter of fact, I do. I pulled some data cores from the Geth troopers Nihlus destroyed. There wasn't a lot to go by, most of the files were corrupted, but I did manage to pull a few strings. It's interesting... the Geth programming still uses parts of the original keelish source code in relation to things of non-Geth origin."

"What does you mean by that? Source code?"

"Well, they're a network intelligence. That's their basic architecture. A single Geth unit isn't much more intelligent than a varren, but a group of them together sharing processing power are almost as intelligent and as dynamic as human soldiers. Their internal runtimes use trinary logic and a lot of machine code that doesn't parse into any language I could decompile, but they also have a secondary runtime for things that don't fit into their internal knowledge base. In other words, anything that is _external_ to the Geth consciousness uses a compiler language, while anything they directly interact with uses a trinary language I can't decompile."

Shepard nodded, "So that contains information on... what? Their tactical objectives? Targeting profiles?"

"Yes, among other things. I found out that an unusually large number of their external files deal with Saren's flagship. That suggests it isn't a Geth construct at all, it's something completely alien even to them."

Anderson squinted, "That's... surprising. It had a similar configuration to the Geth assault ships we encountered..."

"The Geth have references to components of their own ships as well. I think they're augmented with alien technology that they don't really understand. I'm guessing Saren provided them with that technology in exchange for their cooperation."

Udina smiled, "More evidence of collusion... anything more on that flagship? A navigational trace or some way to locate it?"

"Nothing that specific. The... uh... Geth files have identifiers in Keelish. There are some strings that do not properly translate, and an IFF tag that identifies it 'Reaper Capital Ship.'"

 _Reaper..._ something about the word set Shepard's hair on fire. She knew what that word meant... she'd heard it before...

"It has an extremely high strategic priority for them," Tali'Zorah went on, "in fact it seems higher than any other Geth construct or location. It's almost like they worship it..."

 _Reaper..._

 _A creature that looked like a fusion between a human being and a willow tree, standing in a bunker or a shelter somewhere, reaching for a window flooded with light that was too bright to be the sun..._

 _Machinery - circuitry, wires, power sources - resting in a bed of torn flesh..._

"Reapers..." Shepard said, and she could see it as clearly as she could see the Presidium around her. Almost two kilometers tall, black and menacing, enormous and powerful the way one might think of a vengeful god, standing over her, marching past. People fleeing in its path, people dying. Figures, some humanoid and some not, pouncing on people like predators, tearing them down in the streets, mutilating them where they found them. Machinery being drilled into flesh, and more flesh being discarded. The Reaper, massive and powerful, moved over all of it, a force so vast it defied all explanation...

 _A ball of fire in a ring of smoke..._

 _A moon tumbling through the milky way..._

 _A jet black circle against a bright orange background..._

 _The Reapers, reaching for her..._

"It was a warning!"

The conversation died abruptly and suddenly all eyes were on Shepard. Udina looked confused, Anderson looked worried, and all the others just looked puzzled.

" _What_ was a warning?" Udina asked.

"The vision," Shepard said, "From the Prothean beacon. That's what it was trying to transmit into my brain. It was a warning about the Reapers."

Anderson's eyebrows rose, "Reapers, _plural_? We got a taste what that ship could do on Eden Prime... please don't tell me there's _more than one_ of those damn things!"

"There's more than one," Shepard said, grimly, " _Many_ more. Thousands, millions maybe. I don't understand much about the warning, but that ship..." she shuddered, hugging herself, "Whoever built that ship, I know for certain they're the same people that wiped out the Protheans."

Udina frowned, "That's impossible. The Protheans have been extinct for thousands of years. What isolated piece of technology could even survive that long?"

Shepard looked up at Udina with a look of pity on her face, "Other than the giant space station we're currently standing in?"

"Oh... well... the Citadel is maintained at all times by the keepers. I'm not sure that counts."

"What about the mass relays? The one at Charon had fallen out of orbit and crashed and was still perfectly functional after five thousand years. Same for the dormant relays we activated at Arcturus, Zion, Asgard, same for all the-"

"Okay, okay, I take your point," Udina leaned back on his heels, scratching his chin, "It does seem far-fetched, but as you point out, hardly unprecedented. So it's possible that Saren's flagship is a relic of whatever civilization destroyed the Protheans. But if that's the case, what could be his true objective in accessing the beacon? Not to steal it, obviously, or he would have taken it with him."

"The Geth use a keelish word for that that Reaper battleship," Tali'Zorah chimed in, "they call it 'The Lord' or 'The Sovereign.' It's an old keelish word for the creator god of the universe. If they worship that ship like a god, what if Saren is helping them find more of them?"

Anderson's eyebrows rose, "They could be Prothean ships. Maybe a dissident faction of their own empire? That's the leading theory about their extinction, that they destroyed themselves in a huge civil war..."

"That doesn't feel right," Shepard said, "Not even a little. The beacon was a warning, not a boast. The only thing I can tell for sure is that the Protheans were dying and ships like Sovereign were part of whatever was killing them."

"You said you saw synthetics before," Anderson said, "You thought maybe they were Geth? What if that's a warning by analogy?"

Tali'Zorah nodded, "The Reapers could be a race of AIs. Maybe the Protheans created them, and the AIs built some of these starships as part of the rebellion? That would explain why the Geth consider it to be sacred."

"That would make sense..." Shepard thought it over, breathing deep, "It would explain why Saren wanted access to the beacon. If he could figure out where the battle lines were drawn, he could probably work out where the Reapers' main bases were. Best places to look to find another one of their ships or even some of their weapons."

"But why take that information for himself?" Alenko asked, "The Council could easily do all of that if he shared his information with them..."

"Because he isn't doing this for the Council or for the Citadel," Udina said, "You saw what he did to Nihlus. He's _gone rogue!_ Or even farther than that. If he had a fleet of ships like the one at Eden Prime, he could overthrow the Citadel Council in one fell swoop. He could conquer half the galaxy with a fleet like that..."

"Or exterminate anyone who tried to stop him," Anderson added, a grim look in his eye, "Imagine a dozen of those things landing in Vancouver. Saren would wade through us like prairie grass."

"We have motive," Shepard said, straightening up, even as she realized it, "That was the missing piece all along. Even if we could implicate Saren with this evidence, the Council will want to know why he's doing all of this."

"And now we know," Anderson said, "Saren is building an army the likes of which the Citadel races have never seen. He's become the warlord the Council always feared he would, and now it's almost too late to stop him."

Ambassador Udina folded his arms, closed his eyes for a long moment. Doubt rested on his face for a long, tense moment. Then he opened his eyes and reached for his desk terminal, nodding to himself. "I'll make the call."

...

...

For the next six hours, Tali'Zorah nar Raya heard variations of the same questions from five other people, each more important than the last. Ambassador Udina would later ask her to recount her tail and describe her evidence to a VI system designed to report to the C-Sec, and an hour later to Executor Pallin himself. A two hour break for lunch then saw Executor Pallin asking her to relay the story to someone named Tela Vasir, who then vanished from the room like a frightened rodent only to reappear an hour later with Commander Shepard, Garrus Vakarian, and two heavily armed salarians with orders to report to the Citadel Council for something called a "New Hearing."

Tali'Zorah nar Raya had never been to the Citadel Tower before. In fact, she had never even been to the Presidium before and never imagined in her life she would ever be allowed to do so. But now, seven and a half hours after being nearly murdered by a shifty gangster in the back of a dive bar nobody had ever heard of, she was standing at the presentation platform in the chambers of the Citadel High Council, the three most powerful beings in the known galaxy, one of whom was now asking her that oft-repeated and fateful question, "Please tell us what you found."

Tali'Zorah answered.

And for forty five minutes, video records, audio records, biometric data and Geth code samples poured through holographic windows in the Council Chambers, turned over and displayed for all to see. The secondary reports from C-Sec and Spectre VIs gave the data more gravitas, and testimony from C-Sec agents and Spectres put the proverbial cherry on top of it. Executor Pallin even presented sealed records from Garrus Vakarian's independent investigation, citing evidence that Saren - through intermediaries like Fist and a surprisingly cooperative Alexis Tannenbaum - had conspired to have Tali'Zorah assassinated before she could pass her evidence off to anyone else who might care. All told, two hours of testimony and evidence were presented to the Council, all leading to the same conclusion.

And for two hours, the holographic representation of Saren Arturius grunted and growled, clicked his tongue in disdain, or half-heartedly remarked against the evidence as 'irrelevant' or 'circumstantial.' Just from looking at him, you would be tempted to think he was watching a group of school children trying to prove that it really wasn't past their bedtime after all.

The Council's reaction, on the other hand, could not have been more different.

"Then you have established with confidence," Councilor Valern was saying, "That this data has not been tampered with or fabricated in any way?"

Spectre Tela Vasir shook her head earnestly, "Not at this level of detail. There would at least be room for speculation if the video feeds or biometric data were noisy or of low quality. But at this level of definition, a fabrication would be easy to detect. And I'm coming at it with some of the most sophisticated VIs in the business..."

"What is your level of confidence in its authenticity?" Spartus asked, "Just so I can quantify it."

"Ninety seven percent," Vasir answered, "Ninety nine if you exclude the code samples recovered from the Geth troopers."

Spartus huffed, "Which don't actually implicate Saren in and of themselves." He looked up, now, at Saren's holographic avatar.

From hundreds of light years away, Saren snorted disdainfully. "All respect to Vasir, but but I would hardly call her Armax Industries VIs 'sophisticated.' They're not designed to specifically search for fabrications, just artifacts and inconsistencies. My own VI systems..."

"Saren," Councilor Valern cut him off in a surprisingly forceful tone, "Your counter-claim strains credibility. For the quarian witness to fabricate evidence at this level of detail would require pre-meditation on the part of the Alliance."

"Of course it would," said Saren, "And it did. Their first attempt to frame me wasn't good enough so here they are with more of their antics."

Spartus clicked his mandibles, "If they were capable of forging evidence like this, they wouldn't have come to us with such a weak case in the beginning."

"Arrogant fools assumed their original evidence was strong enough..."

"Then and then fabricated new evidence?" Tevos said, "At such a level of fidelity that it fools our best experts? Using an individual who we have confirmed actually was present on Eden Prime during the attack? And managing to forge all of that evidence and records in only two days?"

"They're desperate!" shouted Saren. But the tone of voice was more insistent than accusatory.

"Speculation," Valern said, and shifted his weight, "In any case, this evidence is strong enough to warrant a more complete inquiry into your recent activities, Saren."

"Recent activities?" Saren's brow plates twitched.

"Your failure to disclose data on your new flagship was already an unacceptable breach of protocol, as is your inability to account for your movements over the past ten galactic standard years. We have been considering sanctions against you for some time, but with these accusations our hand is now forced."

Saren snarled, "I have no time for pointless fishing expeditions by desperate charlatans looking to defame me! I am a Council Spectre, and I have work to do!"

Tevos shook her head, "Agent Saren, these are very serious accusations, and the implications for the galactic security are deeply troubling. In order to maintain the integrity of the the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance Division, we must insist that you return to the Citadel immediately."

"Don't make this any harder than it has to be, Saren," Spartus added, "I'll be perfectly happy to learn that this is all some hideous misunderstanding, but for in order for that to happen, you'll have to come to the Citadel and account for your activities for the pa-"

In the hologram, Saren _screamed_.

Not that Commander Shepard had any idea what a screaming turian would normally look like, but even she knew that what she was seeing was deeply, terribly wrong. He looked simultaneously in pain and consumed with rage, as if he had just watched a video of someone murdering his firstborn while also having one of his fingers cut off with a rusty blade. It was a howl as inhuman as it was un-turian, like the animal howl of something beyond comprehension roaring in his chest. He looked at the Council once, his visage took on something so malevolent that for a moment Councilor Spartus actually took a step back. Then the hologram vanished, the transmission ended at the source.

"By... the... Goddess..." Tevos gasped into the stunned silence that fell on the Council chambers. None of the others spoke after that, an the silence lingered for over a minute.

It was Valern, finally, who broke the shocked quiet of the chamber with the touch of his finger on his console. The interface beeped loudly, and after a moment Tevos and Spartus answered the gesture. "It is... it's decided then," Valern said, "The Citadel Council has issued a general warrant for the arrest of Commander Saren Arturius. Spectre Status revoked, pending capture and questioning."

"Thank you, Councilors," Udina said, still shaking at Saren's display. Shepard saw it beneath his facade for just a moment, how badly it had shaken even him. On some level, even Udina hadn't really believed Saren could have gone that far off the rails.


	33. Chapter 32

**32 - Citadel: Saren Exposed**

It probably said something about the Spectre Office that this was the only place on the Citadel other than the Council Chambers that all three councilors could ever be found together in person. Security protocols and counter-terrorism safeguards ensured that they never took the same vehicle or could be found in the same location where a hostile act could reach more than one of them. The only places where the entire Council ever gathered together were utterly secure locations, like the Citadel Tower with its layers of security, or the Asari flagship "Destiny Ascension" with its fortress-like defenses and nigh impenetrable kinetic barriers.

The Spectre Office was the next safest place in the galaxy, not because of its security or its defenses, but because of the kind of people who used that office and whose attention could be quickly directed there if something went wrong. Trying to threaten the Council while the Spectres were watching was like trying to kick a grisly bear cub in front of its mother.

Commander Shepard and Captain Anderson had to be escorted into the room by a squad of Salarians in black and yellow armor, none of whom said more than three or four words, but always in perfect English. Inside the Spectre office they walked down a narrow hallway lined with holographic monitors and scanners until they arrived at a large open room that contained a short catwalk and a holographic projector; all in all, the room had a similar layout to the High Council Chamber, except it was more functional and busier, a place where real world was actually done rather than just decided to be done.

The three Councilors stood at the end of the catwalk, facing a wall full of holographic avatars of various Spectres, fifty or sixty in all. None of them were close enough to the Citadel to communicate live, or even to reach the Citadel in less than a few Earth months. They were present now via the Citadel's quantum entanglement communication system, one of exactly three such networks in existence in the known galaxy. QECs allowed for instantaneous communication across hundreds or thousands of light years, but they had the downside that they could only be used for a short time before the particle accelerators that powered them had to recharge and re-entangle their matrixes. The Citadel Council shared one with the Spectres, and the Systems Alliance had recovered one from the Prothean Archives on Mars that it was in the process of repurposing for a "doomsday network" in the event of a planetwide invasion. The third device, as it happened, had been built from scratch by the Terminus Systems, but disappeared mysteriously just before it was activated, its exact wearabouts and eventual fate the subject of many extranet conspiracy theories.

A timer in the corner of the room told them how long they'd be able to maintain the connection before the communicators used up their power. The time interval was in an Asari notation, so Shepard didn't know if they had an hour or just a few minutes. Only the Salarian escort was physically present, and they immediately moved to the side of the room at the end of the holographic figures as if they too were just images.

It was an odd inversion from the Council, those three members facing their gathered audience instead of their audience standing in the open facing them. And as Shepard took her place behind them, she couldn't help but wonder if this reversal of status was something Saren had simply taken too literally in recent years...

"Just to confirm," said Councilor Tevos, "You have all received the files we sent on the status of Commander Saren Arturius?"

All of the orange holographic avatars briefly turned green. They were flashing their confirmation without having to clutter the space with speech.

"Your new general order," Spartus said, "Is to support the capture or elimination of Commander Saren at all possible opportunities, present assignments permitting. This is to be your highest priority secondary objective, to become primary once your current assignment is completed."

One of the holograms, an Asari commando in a complicated-looking assymetrical hardsuit, asked, "So who's the primary on this? Rix?"

"Unfortunately, Spectre Avitus Rix has asked for a leave of absence which we have reason to believe may soon become permanent."

"Hah! So he _is_ leaving after all!" The Asari snickered.

Councilor Tevos went on, "Our primary asset for this assignment will be Major Kirrahe of the Salarian STG. As many of you know, Kirrahe was one of the first to raise the alarm on Commander Saren's more questionable activities, and has, I suspect, been itching for a chance to make good on his initial investigations."

A Salarian agent near the center of the field straightened up, nodding, "I have already analyzed the Quarian informant's data and compared it to my own files, along with surveillance reports I have acquired from Eden Prime, Feros, Elysium and Noveria. I estimate that Saren is working with a group of Geth, numbering some four to eight thousand troopers, divided among twenty to sixty spacecraft, including the dreadnought-class vessel he is using as a flagship."

"Equivalent to about half of standard assault fleet," Anderson said, mostly to himself but loud enough for the others to hear, "Too few to mount a full scale war, but too many to be just a support staff."

"My conclusion as well," said Kirrahe, "Saren's most recent actions do not fit any current predictive models, so his objectives remain unclear."

Anderson smiled, "I can give you a hint. Saren is a Turian ultra-nationalist, and he's launching a one man war against all of the Citadel races, starting with Earth."

"Respectfully, Captain," Shepard stepped in front of him before she knew she was going to, "I disagree. Saren's attack on Eden Prime was singularly focussed on the Prothean beacon. I think he's after something else. Something far more important."

"We have theorized," said Ambassador Udina behind them, "That Saren may be trying to recover ancient Prothean technology to support his war effort. The battleship he's using right now is one example of that technology. Commander Shepard believes that Saren is trying to find other ships like it, using the Prothean data from the beacon to pinpoint their locations."

One of the holograms - a Krogan, by the look of it, but hard to tell from the low quality of his projection - growled, "That dreadnought of his doesn't look like any Prothean technology we've seen before. It's a completely different design from any of their ships or vehicles."

"We for sure don't know the story behind that ship," Shepard said, "But it's a good bet the Protheans knew more about it than we currently do."

"And how _did_ that happen, exactly?" Major Kirrahe asked, "All of our weapons and hardware have to be registered for Spectre authorization. Judging by the Quarian data, no one but Saren has ever even seen this ship of his."

Spartus' mandibles clicked gently, the Turian equivalent of a frown. "Saren insisted his flagship remain unregistered, and for the last ten galactic years has resisted any attempts by the Council to examine it or even account for its classifications, capabilities or configuration."

"Why?" asked the Krogan, "You people wouldn't even let me keep my mother's favorite shotgun filling out a compliance report."

"At the time, Saren was involved in a deep cover investigation in the Terminus Systems. He cited operational security reasons, which seemed credible at the time, but once his operation there was concluded he was expected to submit his vessel for inspection and certification which, as you all know, he never actually did."

The Asari in the complicated armor sneered at this, " _That_ figures."

"Do you have something to add, Agent Vasir?" Councilor Tevos snapped like a rifle shot.

The Asari - Agent Vasir evidently - rolled her eyes, "This is Saren we're talking about. He got his hands on a battleship larger than anything else in the fleet and you gave him a pat on the back. He could have eaten his grandmother for breakfast and you lot still would have made excuses for him."

"Accusations of favoritism are fruitless at this point, Agent Vasir..."

"Oh, sure they are... and Jondum Bau had his Spectre Status revoked for two galactic years just because he refused to tell anyone where his key witness was hiding."

Tevos stiffened, "That situation was entirely different..."

"Yes it was very different," said the Salarian in the black armor, "For starters, _I_ wasn't Saren."

"You know it's not just Kirahhe," shouted another avatar, one of the few turian spectres in the group, "Just for the record: how many of us in the last, oh, twenty galactic years have reported Saren doing something suspicious?" A full two thirds of the Spectre holograms flashed green at this. A few of the others shook their heads, looking quietly dismayed that they hadn't caught on by now. Shepard made note of this as well.

"Enough of this," shouted Valern, speaking up for the first time, "We called this meeting because we have genuine concerns about Saren's mental state as well as his undisclosed activities in the traverse. We don't know _anything_ for sure except that he was involved in the attack on Eden Prime and the destruction of the Prothean Beacon. Closer examination of his recent operations reveals certain discrepancies that will have to be investigated more thoroughly, but in the mean time, we want him apprehended and brought back for questioning. For the latter task, we're assigning Major Kirrahe and Medallion squad for the actual capture. The rest of you will be obliged to support containment operations to ensure Geth attacks do not spread beyond human space and do not endanger further settlements."

"Fine," said Kirahhe, shifting his weight, "Anything else?"

Both of the Councilors turned to Tevos. She didn't flinch, but somehow the bony crest at the back of her head seemed to turn a little bluer. "We have an additional person of interest in this investigation based on the Quarian data." She touched a control on her console, and a two-dimensional video screen appeared in the air in front of them all. No doubt the same image was appearing in front of the other Spectres on their ships, safe houses and offices all over the known galaxy, transmitted real time via the quantum entanglement communicators each of them had. It was an image from Tali'Zorah's video recording, showing Saren standing near the Prothean beacon, preparing to activate it. In the foreground, a tall Asari woman in grey robes, a red circle painted around her face and head. "We have identified this person as Matriarch Benezia of the Asari Republics. She may be an accomplice to Saren's suspected crimes, or she may not be aware of what he has actually been up to. In either case, we need her detained for questioning as soon as possible."

Major Kirrahe snorted, "I understand an Armali sniper was recently killed during a botched assassination attempt in the wards... circumstantial, I know, but this implies that the odds of the Matriarch being an innocent party in this case are slim."

Tevos, already tense, raised her voice for the first time possibly in her incredibly long life, "You are to keep an open mind, Major, and do not prejudice anything without evidence. Is that understood?"

"Understood," said Kirrahe, making a sure of demuring. But the faint smile never quite left his face. Seeing Tevos angry with him was the most amusing thing that had happened to him all day.

It was Captain Anderson, now, who asked the obvious question. "We know he's hiding somewhere in the Traverse. What kind of fleet support can we expect?"

"That's a good question," said one of the Spectres, a humanoid from a species Shepard didn't recognize but speaking in a gravely, almost croaking voice, "What are the Conventions authorized to commit?"

All eyes turned to Spartus, who responded immediately, "Personal authority, localized only."

"Is that right?" asked Vasir, "Saren has a battleship and a fleet to guard him, and we're supposed to apprehend him using only what we can scrounge up?"

"A _fleet_ cannot track down one man, Agent Vasir," Valern said.

"Perhaps not," said Jondum Bau from the corner of the room, "but the Citadel Fleet could secure the entire region, keep the Geth from attacking any more colonies until we have Saren in custody. Or is that _also_ our responsibility?"

It was around this time that Shepard got the impression, beyond any further doubt, that the Spectres, while also being an incredibly useful tool to the Council, must have been a massive pain in the Council's collective asses. Sure, they were the best operators in the galaxy, the smartest and strongest and most talented people you will ever gather together in one place. The problem was, they all _knew_ it. The Council had to put up with their bad attitudes and constant insubordination because, in the final calculus, there was no one else in the universe who could do the job better than they could. With great power came great responsibility, but there also came great _ego_.

"A fleet action that size," Spartus said carefully, "Could easily trigger a war with the Terminus Systems. We're not dragging the entire galaxy into a galactic confrontation over a few human colonies."

"That doesn't make sense," Bau said, "Why would any of the Terminus Systems resort to violence over a fleet action outside of their territory? None of the major players are stupid enough to risk that confrontation either."

"It's the principle of the thing," Tevos said, "The Terminus Systems promote an anarcho-capitlaist way of life, and they believe that philosophy is morally superior to all others. They are known to be ruthless and extreme in its promotion and have no tolerance for competing philosophies."

"The Omega Syndicate has already mobilized its fast attack ships," Valern said, "And at least a dozen worlds have taken out border control contracts from the Eclipse and the Batarian Dawn. The Blue Suns have established observation posts near the combat zones to monitor our activities. If they believe we are using the Geth incursions as an excuse to annex Terminus colonies, they will retaliate with all due ferocity."

"That's what they did on Elysium," Anderson said, "And those weren't even Terminus colonies they were fighting for."

"So then let the _humans_ provide fleet support," said one of the Turian Spectres, "Local forces, you said? They already have assets in the area. We can coordinate with the Alliance Navy on-"

"As I said, coordination must be through local channels only. The Council cannot and will not sanction a joint operation between the Alliance Navy and the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance branch. If you wish to ask for the support from the Alliance or anyone else, you may do so on your _personal_ authority only."

"Personal authority..." a dozen voices murmured through the room. They all read between the lines. The Spectres were given the job - and only the Spectres. And whatever else the Spectres had the funds, the political connections or simply the balls to bring to bear in dealing with the problem.

"I have Alliance Connections," Commander Shepard said, "Send me in."

Spartus narrowed his eyes, "You're only here as a consultant, Commander. We have no authority to send _you_ anywhere."

"Huh..." the odd humanoid Spectre smiled at this, "That is a problem that would seem to have a very simple solution."

Shepard smiled back. "Seems that way to me."

Spartus read between the lines. He almost jumped out of his suit when the implication hit him, but he also didn't seem completely surprised by it. "This is not an appropriate time or place to discuss that particular issue, Commander..."

"Why not?" Asked Udina, "It's the perfect solution. You don't have to send a fleet into the Traverse, the Spectres get access to Alliance resources, and Saren can be brought to justice with a minimal loss of life on all sides. Everybody wins."

"There's a question of procedure..."

"Since when has the Citadel Council ever allowed _formalities_ to stand in the way of doing what needed to be done?"

The Councilor's shared a long glance, one that seemed absent of meaning. Then, all at once, they turned back to the Spectres. "Major Kirrahe."

"Valern, Sir."

"To summarize. For the time being, you are Primary Asset in this assignment. Your secondaries are Izon and Tethys, who will prioritize the apprehension of Matriarch Benezia. I have transferred all of Saren's personal files and Spectre access codes to the Medallion, and you are authorized to use any means necessary to apprehend Saren. Capture him if possible, eliminate him _if and only if_ you deem it is necessary to prevent further loss of life. All other assets are set to Tertiary and will support as needed."

She hadn't told Kirrahe that he was dismissed. She didn't have to. Naming him the Primary effectively meant that his job had now begun and it was time to get to work. And Kirrahe did exactly that, first shooting glances at Izon and Tethys, silently noting that they would be communicating again through more secure channels very soon. The other Spectres in the room all started exchanging updates and files, transferring information back and forth between one another to take advantage of this oh-so-rare opportunity to catch up via live connection.

And yet they all came to a stop - even Kirrahe - when Tevos spoke again. "Commander Shepard, step forward."

Kirrahe turned around. Everyone in the room froze, watching her. She threaded her way past Anderson and Udina, stepping up to the front of the catwalk where the three Councilors stood, like a child being called to the pulpit.

"It is the decision of the Council that you be granted Special Tactics and Reconnaissance authorization, in accordance with Article Thirty Four Section One of the Citadel Conventions. Do not take this appointment lightly, Commander. You are the first human Spectre, and you are alone among your entire species to be granted such an honor."

Not knowing what else to do, not knowing what else, if anything, to say, Shepard bowed respectfully. "Thank you, Councilor."

"We're sending you, Commander, into the Attican Traverse," Valern said, "To assist Spectre agents Kirrahe, Izon and Tethys in the hunt for Saren. Because Saren has focussed most of his aggression on human colonies, and because the human fleet is the nearest allied forces that can assist the mission, you are obliged to coordinate with the Alliance Navy all possible support for the Spectres in this mission for the sake of galactic security."

"I won't let you down, Councilor," Shepard said.

No one else in the room, physical or holographic, moved or flinched or said anything at all. The looks on most of their faces were unreadable, blank, more puzzled than anything else. No one knew what to think of this, or how to react, or even if they should react at all. For any other group of people, she would have interpreted this as a sign that they were taken completely off guard.

But not the Spectres. They didn't react because they already knew this was going to happen, and the only thing surprising about it was the timing. Whatever their internal feelings about this, they had already worked it through their systems ages ago, and now they were just assimilating a change in status and the existence of a new member they now had to deal - or not interfere with - with in the field.

"There's preparations to make, Commander," Anderson said as she turned to leave, "Meet me at C-Sec headquarters in one hour."


	34. Chapter 33

**33 - Citadel: Special Tactics and Reconnaissance**

They were waiting for her in the Embassy, just as she'd asked. One collection of the oddest bunch of people Commander Shepard had ever seen in one place, sitting in a corner of the atrium surrounded by tall potted plants with blue leaves, watching the gaggle of diplomats, clerks and gofors rushing around on their various errands. They were engaged in conversation when Sheppard joined them, and she didn't interrupt them right away since she presently heard Tali'Zorah ask, "And they never talk to anyone?"

Sitting across from her, Sergeant Garrus Vakarian shook his head, "In two thousand years, the Keepers have never said a word. They don't talk to anyone, they don't listen to anyone, and they don't interfere with anything. There was an effort about twelve hundred years ago to remove them from the Citadel, but any time you take one off the station it self destructs and a new one pops up to replace it. Nobody even knows where they come from, they just kind of appear in the Keeper tunnels."

"So we have this whole space station," Tali'Zorah said, "run by a species we can't talk to, whose origins we don't understand, and the basic machinery we can't even access?"

"Creepy, isn't it?" Garrus turned his mandibles up in a smile, "And yet in two thousand years, there's never been a major incident. The Keepers are weird, but they're reliable, and they've proven it generation after generation."

"What are the keepers?" Sheppard asked, "I haven't seen anything like that."

"Yes you have," Alenko said, "You just didn't notice them. Nobody ever does. Because they're so quiet and... well, passive." He pointed with his finger, singling out a large, four-legged insectoid creature that was currently doing something complicated to a wall console a few meters away with four multi-segmented arms. Shepard had seen them before, but like so many other strange sights and sounds she had ignored it because it never did anything noteworthy. "They're everywhere on the Citadel,"Alenko said, "Apparently, they've always been here, since it was discovered. No one knows why."

"Huh... weird..." Shepard found an open seat and sat down in it, letting the others adjust and pull closer together so they could hear her. The others gathered around close, except for Wrex, who quietly loomed behind them all like the walking thundercloud that he was.

"Listen. I want to thank all of you for all your help in exposing Saren," she said, meeting their eyes, "The Alliance owes you all a debt of gratitude I doubt we could ever repay. More than just the Alliance, maybe the entire galaxy. If any of you ever nee-"

"I'm sorry, but no," Garrus cut her off, "This isn't gonna be a sendoff meeting. I'm coming with you on this one."

"So am I," said Tali'Zorah before Shepard could react.

"And me too," said Wrex, "Hell, I'll even do this one for free."

Shepard shook her head, "Normandy could be going into direct combat against a vastly superior enemy. I can't ask you to take that risk."

Tali'Zorah folded her arms, "Who's asking? If you're going against the Geth, you might as well bring someone who has experience with them."

"Might help to bring along someone who knows Turian military protocols," Garrus added, "Saren still has friends in the Hierarchy, after all."

That seemed to make sense, as far as they were concerned. Shepard turned to Wrex, watched and waited for his sales pitch.

Wrex just shrugged, "I have a really big shotgun."

She smiled. "You're all sure about this? It's not a vacation, you know."

"We all know what's at stake here, Shepard," Garrus said, "I put my whole career on the line just to bring Saren down, and I intend to see this through to the end."

"If you're sure about this," Shepard stood up, smiling at the collection of outstanding weirdos she had somehow picked up as her team, "Welcome aboard."

...

C-Sec Academy didn't look any different to her, but there was a different atmosphere in the air. Reports of Geth attacks in the Armstrong Nebula were on the news screens, along with a piece by Future News on the subject of the spikes the Geth were impaling humans on by the thousands. Survivors called them "dragon's teeth" and the bodies mutilated by those devices, once they became active again, were called Zombies or Abominations, but most people just called them Husks.

But that wasn't what had C-Sec all up in arms. The Geth invasion was gruesome and frightening, but it was far away and the reports were weeks old by the time they reached the Citadel. No, what had C-Sec on the virtual war path was the report on the big giant overhead screen in the main atrium from Future News' very own Emily Wong. She'd only just broadcast the third segment of her five-part series on corruption, and people were already calling for Executor Palin's resignation. "Hell and thank you for watching Future News! I'm Emily Wong, and this is part three of our special investigation: Corruption on the Citadel, the ladder to the top! In our last piece, we looked at financial records recovered from a money launderer known only by the name 'Fist,' describing large scale money transfers to Elanus Risk Control and the Hahne Kedar Corporation. The most surprising revelation, however, comes from the investigation into private individual accounts not connected with any corporate bank or off-world transfer service. Future News' investigation has confirmed that these private accounts are either directly owned or connected to high ranking C-Sec officials, including C-Sec Executor Palin Bravos. In this piece, we explore the nature of those transactions, and we invite you judge for yourself the answer to this question: are top ranking C-Sec officers being paid off by arms dealers?"

Shepard knew on some level that laughing out loud would be in really bas taste, but the sense of panic and dread in C-Sec headquarters felt like a bunch of kids scrambling to clean up their messy rooms before their parents came home. It wouldn't have been so bad, she imagined, if the allegations had been merely sensationalist and even slightly false. But judging by the files she'd sent her, something like a third of C-Sec's top officers had been getting kickbacks from Fists' gun running operation, and a few of them even seemed to be directly involved in the trades. So there was a quiet but frantic scramble by dirty cops to cover their tracks, by clean cops to keep their dirty partners from using them as patsies, and by ambitious junior officers to catch their corrupt superiors before they could destroy the evidence or skip town. And it was all happening at once, and in so many ways and in so many places that nobody could have noticed it unless they weren't involved with it at all.

This, she knew, would not be the end of C-Sec, but it would be a very different organization when all of this was over.

Descending to the lower level, she was somehow unsurprised when the frantic dance of corruption and counter-corruption hadn't actually made it to the requisitions office. The Turian clerk running the office looked about as anxious as a mountaintop, like the quiet pandemonium playing out in the atrium just outside his door was little more than a renovation. She almost expected him to say 'Pardon our dust' for all the concern he showed, and she already knew why. She had, after all, read through Fists' secure files before she sent them to Emily Wong, and she knew that the one C-Sec officer who most assuredly wasn't in on the smuggling game was the one officer in the best position to profit from it.

She suspected, at the time, that he was just much better at covering his tracks than the others, but now she realized it simply would have been too obvious. Besides, keeping the guns secure was his only job, and while Turians sometimes took side gigs for cash, they took to their primary jobs with an almost religious devotion. "Commander Shepard," Sergeant Bartus said as she came in, leaning back in his chair and sizing her up, "Have you come to properly fill out a requisition order for that shuttle you borrowed, or have you come to apologize for making me fill it out for you?"

Shepard grinned. Bartus was two steps ahead of her, like any good quartermaster should be. "I need supplies. Captain Anderson sent me to talk to you."

Bartus nodded, "I've got a memo here from Special Tactics and Recon that an agent would be coming here with an ID code... of..."

Shepard read it from memory, "One four six three three one nine five eight five."

As soon as she said it, a fan of blue light scanned her face bounced a laser beam off her retina, immediately confirming her identity and matching her biometric data against the code. The code itself was meaningless, it was just a string of numbers used to match her voice print against Citadel records. Most people didn't know this, however, so anyone else attempting to use Shepard's access code would be immediately identified as a fake and then carefully tracked by C-Sec and or the Spectres.

"They didn't tell me it was you," Bartus said, a note of admiration in his flanging voice, "Congratulations."

"Thank you."

Bartus hit a control on his desk and said, "I'll open the rare stocks for you, Commander. Enjoy."

...

Twenty five minutes later, Shepard's omni-tool flashed a message that the files had all been received and that the physical items she'd ordered were already being delivered to the Normandy's docking bay. She checked the inventory and marveled at her shopping spree: Along with the license and the forge kit from Ariake Technologies - one that would finally allow her to customize and maintain the hardsuit she'd taken from her would-be assassin - she'd also scored a software patch for the Armax Arsenal fire control software that improved its compatibility with the suit, plus an upgrade for the suit's kinetic barriers that would help stabilize her when shooting in a standing (or running) position. A Hahne-Kedar license for a high-end Kuwashi visor, a Combat Optics module for her new favorite rifle, a high velocity kinetic coil, and a thermal clip shaping mod that would allow the rifle to construct and fire high explosive rounds...

Total expenditure: 27,000 credits. A relative bargain, considering any one of those items would cost twice that on the black market.

"Interesting," said the Bartus, looking over his copy of the receipt on his terminal.

Shepard glanced up at him. "What's interesting?"

"Well, going by your reputation I never figured you for an archer."

She stood still for a moment, unpacking the phrase. He was a Turian, and his accent was thick, so he was probably using a translator VI to tell him how to talk to her. She half-remembered something about Turian military designations being as nostalgic for the pre-firearms age as humans were for pre-spaceflight, in which case Archer probably translated as 'sniper' or broadly 'user of ranged weapons.' He was probably referring to the mods for the rifle, then, and the marksman rig...

"I'm a sapper by trade," she said with a shrug, "If my target gets a chance to shoot at me, I've done something wrong."

"Out of curiosity, how well does that even work? Not that I'm questioning it, you wouldn't still be alive if it didn't. But I wouldn't think any one soldier could have that much control over the battle space."

"And you'd be right. I meant that literally: if I'm taking return fire, it's because I screwed up. That doesn't mean that I never screw up, it just means that I make it a point to never fight fair."

"Heh... so you're not an archer, then. You're a sucker puncher."

Shepard grinned, feigning mock outrage, "Please! I would never punch someone to death! I'm not a barbarian!"

Bartus laughed.

"There's an art form to it," Shepard continued more seriously, "It isn't a battle so much as it is the efficient deconstruction of the enemy's ability to fight. I take away their fortifications, their weapons, their sensors, their defenses, and if I need to, I take off their heads. Literally and figuratively. If I do things right, then you're not actually fighting me, you're just discovering all the ways I've already beaten you."

"Hmmm..." Bartus' expression turned thoughtful. Or at least, it seemed to, but the widely-splayed facial mandibles could mean any number of things on a Turian. "What omni-tool are you using?"

"Bluewire Six from Aldrin Labs. Standard Alliance issue."

"Ahhhh..." Bartus tapped something on his console so casually that Shepard realized he had already queued it up from the inventory system. The little elevator hummed next to the table and the shelf emerged with a small metallic case, painted with the logo of the Serrice Council. "This," said Bartus, "Is the Serrice Council Savant Mark Seven. Best omni-tool in the business. It incorporates the latest Quarian innovations. Holo-drones, decoys... lots of interesting tools for an artist like yourself. First, I'll say that it's worth every cent of what you'll pay for it - and you will pay for it, because with your combat style, you'd be crazy not to."

"And just how much am I gonna buy it for?"

"Twenty five hundred credits."

"Damn, Bartus! I could buy a whole second rig for that!"

"I'm sure you could. But that wouldn't be worth nearly as much as this little bastard here. Are you familiar with the Salarian 'gadly' incendiary missiles? This is the only omni-tool that can provide reliable target guidance. It also supports M-900 kinetic weapons and the M-920 Cain. Trust me, Commander, it's worth every credit."

"You know your craft as well as I know mine. I'll trust you this time." Shepard hit a key on her omni-tool and transferred the funds. Bartus hit a key to receive them, and the locks holding the case down released.

"I will give you a warning, though," Bartus said as she picked up the case, "This is the best equipment you can get anywhere on the Citadel. Probably anywhere in Citadel space."

Shepard raised a brow, "Not much of a warning, is it?"

"The only time I ever saw Saren look at the rare stocks," Bartus went on, and leaned forward over the table, "He was _laughing_."

...

...

She hadn't considered the logistics of getting Wrex's immense bulk into a ship as small as the Normandy. Under gravity, he almost had to stoop down just to walk down the corridors and passageways; in freefall, it would be like crawling through a manhole for him. The sound of his heavy Krogan boot was like someone dropping a tool chest down a flight of stairs, and she couldn't help but ask herself quietly, What the hell have I gotten myself into?

Garrus and Tali'Zorah, on the other hand, were like phantoms, flitting through the ship almost silently. They both fit in to this ship like they were born on it, and somehow that was even more disturbing than the oversized Krogan moveable roadblock.

None of them, of course, were allowed in the Comm Room, and now that a Spectre QEC node had been installed in the array, they never would be. As of now, and for the forseeable future, the Comm Room was to be Commander Shepard's private office, and no other living being could enter it without her direct authorization. Shepard had anticipated this, it was one of the things Anderson had explained to her in the hours after her induction into the Spectres.

What Anderson hadn't explained to her was what she was supposed to do next. That came down to her first ever use of the Common Room's encryption programs and security VIs. This close to the Citadel, the QEC was unnecessary, but the holographic avatars of Ambassador Udina and Captain Anderson were represented on the right side of the little cubicle while the three Councilors were positioned in the center. My first briefing as a Spectre, she thought, waiting for the butterflies in her stomach, and feeling somehow disappointed when there weren't any. Somehow, this didn't seem like anything special, just another dimension to a job she was already doing and was already overqualified for.

"Commander Shepard," said Anderson as his avatar flashed into clarity, "How' the ship?"

"The last of our supples were just delivered. I've also tapped Tali'Zorah and Garrus Vakarian as consultants for this investigation and they have both reported to guest quarters."

"Good. We could use all the help we can get."

"The Medallion has departed Citadel Space already," said Councilor Valern, "They're heading for Omega to chase some leads in the Terminus systems. In the mean time, Tethys has sent an infiltration team to look into Saren's accounts on Ilium to see if they can get any information on what he's been up to."

"Izon is heading for Palaven," said Spartus, "planning to look into Saren's military connections. I told him it was a waste of time, but he thinks he's on to something."

"So that leaves me with counter-Geth operations in the Traverse," Shepard said.

Udina nodded, "And the best place to start would be Feros. Since most of the Alliance fleet is otherwise engaged at Elysium and Shanxi, we haven't been able to get any relief to them since the attack began."

"It's unlikely you'll find any survivors at this point," Anderson added, "Saren's probably wiped out the entire colony by now."

Shepard thought about this, and then shook her head, "Captain, you know Saren better than any of the rest of us, but I think you're wrong about his motivations. He didn't Eden Prime just because of his hatred for humans. His entire objective was to get to the beacon before anyone else could. He even killed a fellow Spectre with no hesitation at all. I think that there's something bigger going on, and I think it has to do with that vision."

Anderson squinted at her, "I thought you said your vision had to do with the Geth slaughtering people?"

"They were synthetics. But I don't know that they were Geth. And supposing that vision was some kind of data transfer from the beacon, they couldn't have been. The Geth didn't even exist five thousand years ago."

Udina frowned, "I'm with Anderson on this one. I don't see why Saren would commit high treason against the Council and even murder one of his closest friends just to go on some Prothean vision quest."

"That would depend on what the vision actually means. But my working theory is that Saren is trying to find more of those giant battleships like Sovereign. Tali'Zorah's recording has his mention something called the Conduit... it's safe to assume that this Conduit is some crucial piece of Prothean technology that will let him find what he's looking for, which means his primary targets will be in systems with ancient Prothean ruins. That means the raids on Shanxi and Elysium are just diversions, and whatever's on Feros must be part of his real objective. It could be the Conduit, or another clue about how to find it. Either way, we have to get it before he does."

"We will trust your judgement on that, Shepard," Tevos said, "Not that we really have a choice. However, if you do believe this so-called 'Conduit' is a unique Prothean device, there's one other lead you might consider. Matriarch Benezia, our other person of interest... her daughter is Doctor Liara T'Soni, an archeologist with the University of Serrice on Thessia. She specializes in Prothean studies, interestingly enough."

"That's an interesting coincidence, don't you think?"

"It could be. According to my information, she had a falling out with the Matriarch twenty five years ago and they haven't been on speaking terms ever since. Even so, she may have some insight about the Matriarch's activities that we lack."

"Either way, it's a lead. Do you have any idea where I might find her?"

"That we don't know," said Tevos, "I have my people on Thessia looking into it. Assuming you don't find her on your own, I'll forward you whatever I can as soon as I have it."

"Appreciated, Councilor. Thank you."

Tevos bowed slightly, and her holographic image vanished along with the other two. This left Shepard alone in the room with the electronic ghosts of Udina and Anderson, free to talk without the Council overhearing. Shepard immediately said, "I have the feeling that I'm being used."

Anderson nodded. It was exactly what all three of them had been thinking up to this point. The way the Spectre appointment had gone down, the timing of it, and the fact that the other agents hadn't been surprised all hinted at this. "There is always a bit of exploitation in the Council's decisions. They never do anything unless there's something in it for them."

"They're politicians. That goes without saying." She shot a glance at Udina, watching his avatar bristle at this remark, "What I mean is, this feels like the Council is just humoring us. We're not expected to actually succeed here. If we get too successful, they'll probably pull the plug on this whole affair."

"You think the Council is setting us up to fail?"

Shepard shook her head, "Look at the state of galactic affairs. Humanity controls a huge territory with untapped resources, and the Navy is getting stronger all the time. So we're wealthy, we're powerful... we're not a competitor with the Citadel Conventions, but we're big enough to be a major power bloc. So on the one hand, they know they need to keep us under control and keep us from causing problems, and the best way to do that is to bring us in and keep us included. But including an economic and military power as big as the Alliance..."

"I see what you're saying," Udina nodded, "They're afraid that too much inclusion erodes their own influence..."

"... and so they keep looking for us to fail as an excuse to make us work harder to earn our place. I know what the Spectres were saying, but it wasn't favoritism that had the Council turn a blind eye to Saren's activities. They left him alone because he was focussing his activities on humans."

Udina frowned, "How do you know that? Have you looked through his files?"

"No, I haven't. In fact, I am the only Spectre agent who hasn't been given access to Saren's files. It took me a while to work out why. But that's the only conclusion that makes sense. They were counting on Saren to push us back, keep us from rising to power too quickly."

"That explains alot," Anderson said, folding his arms, "An awful lot. God, I hope you're wrong about that..."

"I'm not, but it doesn't matter. They're under-estimating us, which means Saren is too. That gives us the advantage." Turning to face them directly, Shepard said, "Either way, our first stop will be Feros. I know we're late to the party, but if the reports I've seen are accurate, whatever the Geth are looking for, they're having a hard time finding it. I'll have the ship ready to depart as soon as you're aboard, Captain."

Anderson suddenly looked like someone had punched him in the balls. The look of pain and embarrassment leapt out from his holographic visage like a lightning bolt. "About that..."

The temperature in the room seemed to drop by five degrees. "Captain?"

Ambassador Udina turned slightly, and it was only now that Shepard realized the two men were both in the same room together. "Effective today, Captain Anderson will be stepping down as Commanding Officer of the Normandy. The ship is yours now."

Anderson nodded, "She's quick and quiet, and you know the crew. Perfect ship for a Spectre. Treat her well, Commander."

"This isn't right, Captain. The Normandy is your command..."

"You need your own ship. Spectres have to be autonomous, and they can't answer to anyone but the Council. Besides, if you're right about Saren, and I'm pretty sure you, then I need to remove myself from this situation."

"Given your... history... with Saren?"

Anderson dipped his chin, "I was in your shoes once. Twenty years ago. The Council was considering me as a candidate for the Spectres. Saren was my evaluator."

"What exactly went wrong?"

"Ask me some time, I'll tell you the whole story. The point is, that history can be leverage the Council can use. If you're right, and they're really just playing us, then I'm a liability you can't afford."

The idea of Captain Anderson being anything but an asset didn't sit well with Commander Shepard. He was one of the most skilled and most intelligent officers in the Alliance Navy, and one of the very few N7s to ever reach command rank. He probably would have been a damn good Spectre too if it wasn't for Saren...

"I should go," Shepard said, before she knew she was going to.

"We'll be here if you need anything," said Anderson, and closed the connection.

"You'll have your departure clearance in one hour," Udina said, and then likewise closed the connection, leaving Commander Shepard alone in the comm room.

Her comm room.

On her ship.


	35. Chapter 34

**34 - SSV Normandy: July 12th, 2183**

It felt good to be in zero gravity again. Normandy may have been built to tolerate atmospheric flight, but it was truly a creature of the stars, a vessel that was happiest when there was no up or down to cramp its style. The corridors and passages felt less cramped and somehow even friendlier, as if the ship was simply in a better mood now. Even Wrex seemed to loose up now, no longer needing to duck through passages and free to push himself feet-first through the ship in what was apparently the default Krogan style.

The Citadel, in all its splendor, was slowly falling away aft as the ship accelerated, and the Widow nebula spun around them in all directions as the ship raced towards the Arcturus Relay. In three days' time they would reach the Exodus Relay, and from there a three months' flight to Feros, where the local Alliance forces were reporting still more Geth reinforcements making planetfall. Shepard privately doubted that the colony would even still be there by the time they arrived, but it wasn't the colony she was interested in, after all.

She was also privately beginning to doubt her own sanity. There was a time, not too long ago, that the idea of the Geth slaughtering a human colony would have filled her with pain and dread. That the thought of dead civilians would have made her physically ill, and the notion that someone out there was butchering innocents would have filled her with rage. Something of that was still inside of her, but there was something else within her too. A voice, almost foreign to her, that latched onto the image of dying civilians and whispered Their sacrifice will be honored in the coming empire.

On some distant, almost subconscious level, she knew the words had come from the Prothean Beacon. She didn't know how she knew that, nor did she know what the words meant. The words weren't even memories, just symbols, a new dimension of meaning. This is what death means to me. This is what death is.

And as this thought found a landing place in the front of Commander Shepard's brain, she knew exactly what she needed to do.

"Commander," said Lieutenant Moreau as Shepard floated into the bridge. He glanced back at her over his shoulder, as did Lieutenant Alenko in the operations seat next to him. "I heard what happened to Captain Anderson. Guy survives a hundred battles and then gets taken down by backroom politics."

Sheppard snorted, "They say war is just politics by other means."

"No shit," Moreau shrugged, "Just watch your back, Commander. This operation goes south, you're next on the chopping block."

"This operation goes south, it's all of our heads. You know that, don't you?"

Moreau nodded, "Everyone on this ship is behind you, Commander."

Shepard nodded back, and then said, "One Em Cee."

Normandy's VI head the words, and the "1MC" holographic screen appeared in the air in front of her, the intercom line from the bridge to the rest of the ship. Shepard tapped the center icon to open the channel and let that alien voice inside of her shape her words. "Attention crew of the SSV Normandy. This is your Commander speaking. We have our orders: find Saren, and bring him to justice. I won't lie to any of you, this will be the most difficult mission any of you have ever faced. The combined forces of the Citadel Conventions and the Spectres are closing in around Saren, and we are the tip of the spear. Our opponent knows we're coming, and as we pursue him through the Traverse, Saren's followers will be waiting for us. But we will be stopped, and we will not be intimidated! We're not doing this just for the friends we lost on Eden Prime, or even for the colonies currently under siege. We are doing this for every species in Citadel Space. Saren must be defeated, and we will stop at nothing to bring him down." Shepard tapped the icon in the center of the screen and closed the channel.

"Well said, Commander," said Lieutenant Moreau, "Captain would be proud."

"The Captain gave up everything so we could have this chance," Shepard said, turning to leave the bridge, "We're not about to let him down now."

"Damn right, Sir," Lieutenant Moreau focussed his attention back on his instruments and then opened the 1MC from his own console. "Arcturus Prime Relay is in range... initiating transmission sequence..."


End file.
